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by artisamu (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: College AU, M/M, Youtuber AU, also there's some background shallura but i forgot about allura being a teenager im so sorry, theres probably other fics like this but im still writing this anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-14 01:43:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 39,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11197836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/artisamu
Summary: Keith wants to get to know the popular youtuber "Lancelot" on a more personal level than just being a fan.EDIT: This was inspired by lancemcclains's social media au on tumblr!





	1. Pining

The only thing that lights Keith’s bedroom is the blue glow from his phone. It’s two in the morning and Keith finds it hard for him to sleep, his insomnia keeping him up and awake.

He gives an occasional laugh from his bed as he continues to stare at his phone screen, watching a video he’s seen at least a dozen times already from his most favorite youtuber that goes by the name “Lancelot”. It’s an old playthrough of the Sims 3 and “Lancelot” is giving each character voices as he zooms in on them.

“Oh Lance! You’re so handsome!” says Lance in a high-pitched voice, “Can I kiss you?”

“Well, maybe just a little.” Lance responds in his normal voice. He then proceeds to make kissing noises as both sim characters kiss on screen. Keith rolls his eyes but continues to watch the video.

Eventually, Keith gets to the video where Lance’s in-game girlfriend dies from a fire. Lance didn’t have a webcam at the time of the video but Keith could still hear the distraught sounds Lance was making through his earphones. The sad whimpers break Keith’s heart a little.

The video fades to a black screen that spells out “R.I.P. Elena McCutie 2013-2013” and then cuts to Lance’s old perky outro, “That’s it for this video! If you guys still wanna see this series be sure to let me know with your comments! I’ll figure something out with – oh look it’s Death – I’ll figure something out for the next video. See ya later guys!”

It’s four a.m. when Keith plays the next video which immediately starts with Lance talking for his sim character to another sim, “So yeah, it’s been tough since my girlfriend died,” and then in a flirtatious tone, “so what you doin’ later?” For some reason the transition makes Keith laugh louder than he has all night, and then he quickly clamps his hand over his mouth to stifle his giggles. He can’t have Shiro wake up to find him watching Lance’s videos. His brother would never miss an opportunity to poke fun at him for it.

Video forgotten, Keith removes his earbuds and strains his ears to hear any shuffling from the room next to his. He hears a door open and quickly turn his phone screen off and tosses himself into the covers in his bed.

Soon, his own door opens to a disheveled Shiro, rubbing at his eyes, “Keith, what are you doing up at this hour? It’s almost time for me to leave for work.” When Keith doesn’t respond, Shiro says, less groggily, “I know you’re awake, Keith.”

Keith shifts so that his body faces Shiro, “Nothing, just couldn’t sleep.” Knowing Shiro, that explanation alone wouldn’t satisfy him, but he seemed too sleepy to care.

Shiro sighs, “Just get as much sleep as you can before you go to class today, okay?”

“Okay, Shiro,” Keith settles into his bed, for real this time, to try to get some sleep.

As soon as Shiro closes the door behind him though, Keith is plagued by thoughts of Lance. He’s funny, he’s a talented singer and guitarist, and he’s even pretty handsome. He’d kill to get to know him better than just a fan. If only he knew Keith existed…

Suddenly, Keith sits up in his bed and scrambles to get up and rushes to his desk. He pulls a sticky note and a pencil and scribbles something down. When he’s done, he lifts the note level to his face and just looks at it. He reads the words over and over again.

_Get Lance to notice you._

 

 

Keith managed to get about three hours of sleep before he had to get ready for the day. He makes it to class on time and takes his notebooks out for lecture like usual, except that he couldn’t possibly focus on what the professor was saying. He was thinking about ways to get attention from Lance. It would not be easy, especially from a youtuber as big as Lance with over 3 million subscribers (almost 4 million actually, but it’s not like Keith’s counting or anything).

He continues to mull over any possible ideas while half paying attention to the lecture when his phone vibrates, notifying him of Lance’s 9AM video upload. Keith groans internally, class won’t end for another half hour so he can’t see the video now. But, he can at least see what the video title and thumbnail are. Keith takes his phone out of his pocket and opens the youtube app. He waits anxiously as the school’s slow wifi loads the app and displays the list of his subscriptions.

This morning’s video is called “Giving My Mom A Face Mask” with the thumbnail of Lance and his mother making pouty faces at the camera while wearing some kind of green face mask along with the kissy face and heart-eyes emojis. Keith remembers Lance’s mom being in some videos, she’d mainly appearing in vlogs. Since today is Tuesday, Lance will be uploading self-care related videos. At first, the video upload schedule would be sporadic and inconsistent. But over the years, Lance started using a schedule and Keith has been tracking it ever since. Keith remembers reminding Lance of his new schedule along with several of his other fans. It was the closest to an interaction they’ve ever had.

But that will change soon.

Keith tucks his phone back in his pocket. He’ll have to wait until the end of class, like usual, to watch the video. Even though things like makeup aren’t his forte, Keith made it his mission to watch every video Lance has uploaded, no matter how foreign the concept may seem to him. His favorite videos though are the Saturday morning vlogs where Lance talks about anything that’s happened throughout the week. Sometimes, it feels like Lance is talking _right to him_ , but Keith knows better than to actually believe that.

Class finally ends and Keith has enough time to watch the video before his next class. The video proves entertaining when Lance and his mom banter over their own beauty. Towards the end of the video when they both remove the weird gunk off their faces, Lance grabs his mom by the chin and moves their faces so they are both facing the camera in a “ta-da!” motion. Keith can’t help but smile.

“Do you wanna say good-bye to the people at home, Mamá?” Lance looks towards his mother.

With a slight accent, the petite woman looks at the camera and waves, “Good-bye everyone. Thank you for supporting my beautiful son.” She turns to pinch Lance’s cheeks for effect, which earns a laugh from him as he tries to swat the woman’s hands away.

Keith puts his phone away as he enters his next class. Right as he sits down, the idea occurs to him. His eyes go comically wide. Of course!

He hastily digs out his phone and opens his internet browser. He types a few words into the search engine and hits “Enter.” The wifi doesn’t load the page fast enough to Keith’s liking, but eventually he sees his search results. He scrolls through until he finds something that seems interesting and helpful. He selects it and is once again at the mercy of the internet connection. Keith anxiously shakes his leg in his seat as the browser loads. Finally, he sees the big red words, “How to Start a Youtube Channel.”


	2. Pining Harder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith starts recording his first video for his youtube channel. And one video in particular gets Keith all riled up.

Keith practically flew out of his seat at the end of his last class for the day. His body is on autopilot as his mind races a mile a minute. _What kind of videos should I make? What kind of schedule should I upload them? I can use the digital camera Shiro bought for my high school graduation and –_

His phone vibrates in his pocket, interrupting his thoughts. It must be Lance’s 2PM video upload. He fishes out his phone and opens Youtube. This afternoon’s video is called “Check Out This Rad Space Bathbomb!!” with the thumbnail being a picture of Lance’s slender hand holding a round purple ball full of blue swirls and glitter stars. Keith will have to watch it when he gets home.

He makes it to the student parking lot and finds his motorbike parked in its usual spot. He grabs his helmet and automatically gets on. Throughout the ride home, he continues to think about possible video ideas that he almost ran over a red light.

He makes it to his apartment complex’s parking lot unscathed though. He hops out of his bike and sprints up the stairs to the apartment. He almost slams the door closed as he runs inside. Now where was that camera…

                 

 

Keith sprawls himself onto his bed with camera and a notepad in hand. Alright, he can do this! Keith took note of general guidelines that most of the articles he’s read have said. The most common and a bit clichéd guideline was to create content that he would enjoy creating. So, Keith scrawled a short list of his interests on a page of his notepad. After he was done, he looked at each item and considered each one carefully.

The first topic was, obviously, conspiracy theories. He didn’t really appreciate the fact that cryptids had become a new meme a while ago on Tumblr, but he liked how they were finally getting some attention. And the craze had started to die down, so now may be a good opportunity to express his serious opinions on these conspiracies. He could make vlogs just talking about them, but he doubts that would be interesting, especially to someone like Lance. Keith scribbles some question marks around the word “Conspiracies.”

Next, there was maybe starting a Let’s Play series. Keith was mildly good at video games, though all he had was computer games. Maybe if a particular series really hit it big, he might get an audience that would even start recommending games to him. But then again, he doesn’t have time or money to be buying new games. Plus, he owns a Macbook, which is pretty limiting since most computer games cater to PC users. Damn it, Shiro. Keith crosses out the word “Let’s Plays.”

Last on the list is general vlogs and internet challenges. He could vlog about his motorcycle. Maybe he could include Shiro in some videos, if he was up for it. Keith might even do a little bit of cooking in some videos, he was a decent cook. As for challenges, the last one he’s heard about was the Ice Bucket Challenge. It might not be too late to do that. Keith writes another set of question marks around the topic as another possibility.

Another guideline was to keep an uploading schedule. Keith could try uploading two videos a week, it was a good start (it was how Lance started out too, but Keith won’t admit that he remembers that). He sits up and turns on the camera. He had to at least figure out how to use it first.

                 

 

“Okay, let’s try this again,” Keith mutters to himself. He had been trying to record himself for the past twenty minutes. He was going for an introduction video as his first ever upload but he can’t seem to find the words to describe himself. Maybe it’s because he still hasn’t fully decided on what his channel should be about? Keith lets out a huff of frustration, the air blowing into his bangs.

No sooner than he pressed the record button, the front door opens and in comes Shiro, “Hey Keith,” he calls out from the living room. “I know you’re home. The door isn’t locked.” Keith stumbles, unable to decide if he should hide the camera or not. But it’s too late as Shiro has already opened the door to his bedroom and is now looking at Keith. His eyes meet his face, and then falls to the camera in his hands. With an amused smile, Shiro asks, “What’cha got there?”

Keith just stands there with his mouth slightly agape, “Uh… A digital camera?”

Shiro hums thoughtfully, “I see that it’s a camera. But what are you doing with it?” There’s an almost teasing glint in his eye.

Keith frowns, not finding this situation amusing at all, “I was, uh… recording myself.” He sheepishly looks away. Shiro’s face lights up, but he is cut off by Keith, “Don’t! Say. Anything.”

But Shiro speaks anyways, “I just thought this day would never come, is all.” Keith attempts to throw a punch at Shiro, but Shiro dodges easily.

“What do you mean by that, huh?” Keith asks dryly.

Shiro places a finger to his lip as if in deep thought, and replies, “Well, isn’t it obvious? When you admire someone so much, you would try to emulate that person. In this case, you’re probably trying to record a video for a youtube channel. Or am I wrong?” Keith’s only reply is a defeated sigh. “But I think this will be good for you. It will make a good hobby rather than that ‘hardcore’ you used to do.”

Keith scoffs, “It’s called ‘parkour’, and I’m not so sure I’ll be good at this. I don’t even know what to talk about.” He slumps as he plops onto his bed. He reaches for his notepad and hands it to Shiro. “See this? I’ve got nothing.”

Shiro looks at the list with a focused expression. After a while, he speaks up, “Why don’t you talk about your interests?”

“I’ve tried that, but I just end up ranting and I wanna keep this video short and to the point. But if it’s too short, it just ends up being awkward.” Keith lets out a groan as he leans back to lie on his bed.

Shiro thinks for another while, and then says, “Why not just skip the introduction and get right to your first, actual video.” He smiles as he hands the notepad back to Keith. Keith ponders his brother’s suggestion. Now that he thought about it, first impressions are important. Simply talking about what kind of videos he’ll make only stalls for time in _actually_ making said videos.

Keith sits up abruptly, “Okay, I’ll do it. Start the recording.”

Shiro smiles, “I’ll get the tripod. I wouldn’t want to make my presence make you more nervous about recording yourself.” While Shiro’s gone, Keith looks over his little list once again. He could start with his favorite conspiracies. He could start off with something simple like aliens or something before delving into anything too passionate like Mothman or the Lochness Monster. He can get to slightly more personal vlogs once he has an audience.

When Shiro returns with the tripod, Keith tells him his idea. “Aliens, huh?” Shiro lifts an amused eyebrow, “Are you going to mention the whole Neil Armstrong about his weird initials and the whole ‘faked’ moon landing?”

Keith smiles at him, despite their very different interests, his older brother really tries his best to understand him. “Probably. Oh! I’m probably going to have to address the whole ‘flat earth’ issue too. Nobody should be dumb enough to believe that crap.”

“Touché,” says Shiro. Once he leaves the room, Keith begins to set up the camera onto the tripod. He even cleans his room a little bit so that it’s a more presentable background.

He clicks the record button, settles himself comfortably onto his bed, and begins, “Hey, have you ever heard about a show called Ancient Aliens? They make compelling arguments about how our ancestors could have had contact with super advanced aliens that helped them make their amazing monuments…”

 

 

Keith finishes editing his video by dinner time. He uploads the video and leaves it to process while he goes to eat. There’s a sort of spring in his step as he waltzes into the kitchen. Not even having mac and cheese for the fourth night in a row could put a downer in his mood.

Shiro notices his younger brother’s attitude, “I’m guessing the recording went well?”

Keith hums as he washes his hands, “It was okay. I didn’t actually sound as awkward as I thought I would have.” He grabs a serving and takes a seat next to Shiro at the dinner table. “I just uploaded the video so it’ll take a while to process.” He starts to dig in to his meal.

“Whoa whoa whoa! I get that you’re excited and all but don’t eat so fast,” says Shiro, “I don’t want you ending up with a stomach ache.”

Keith pouts, “I’m lactose intolerant and we’re having mac n’ _cheese_. I’ve been having stomach aches just this past couple of _days_.”

Shiro’s eyes widen, “Keith! Why didn’t you tell me? I thought you said that you were okay with cheese?” Before he even finished saying the word “cheese”, Keith bursts out laughing.

“I was only joking, Shiro. Of course I’m fine with cheese. It’s only milk and ice cream.” Keith gives him a reassuring smile, but he is only met with a distressed Shiro closing his eyes as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Keith laughs again.

Shiro scowls at him, “Just eat your dinner. _Slowly_.”

“Yes, Dad.” Shiro kicks him under the table, which only makes Keith laugh more.

 

 

It hasn’t even been five minutes since the video was made public, but Keith is sitting in front of his laptop, anxiously staring at the view counter. The counter displays “2 Views” but it’s most likely just from Keith refreshing the page. It’s okay though, Keith will just have to wait. He’s not exactly the most patient person he knows, but for his sanity he’ll have to wait a couple of days.

Keith decides to watch Lance’ video from earlier, maybe to take his mind off of it for a while. Keith clicks onto the bathbomb thumbnail and sits back to a more comfortable position. He is greeted by Lance’s usually loud and energetic intro, “Hi guys! I’m Lancelot and today I’m gonna try a bathbomb for the first time! I just thought that it’s about time I invested in some Lush bathbombs since I’ve been doing things like makeup and skincare. Especially since so many of you guys requested I do a bathbomb video. So, here we go!”

The video cuts to a bathtub filled with clear water. Lance’s voice echoes in the bathroom, “Okay, so here’s what the bathbomb looks like,” his hand holds up the bright purple and blue sphere to the camera, the glitter glinting in the bathroom light. “It’s called ‘Starboy’ and look it’s all glittery.” His hand rotates to show more angles of the bathbomb, “I got this specific bathbomb ‘cause it’s all spacey and y’all know how much I love space related stuff.”

Then, the camera moves to the clear water in the tub, “Okay, so I think I just drop this in…” Lance’s hand carefully lowers the bathbomb until its right above the surface of the water, and lets it plop in. It immediately starts to fizz, a low hissing sound fills the bathroom. The camera zooms in on the slowly dissolving bathbomb, “Whoa! That’s really cool. Look at it guys!” Keith can’t help but smile at Lance’s excitement.

The camera turns to Lance’s face, “Okay, I think I’m supposed to let it sit there until it completely dissolves, which I don’t think will take very long.” Then suddenly his face turns smug, “But I’ll cut to when I’m already in the tub.” And then he _winks_ at the camera.

The video cuts to a different angle of the tub, to Lance in the tub _half naked_. Or maybe full naked? Keith can’t tell since the tub has gone so purple and the water stops at above his belly button… Lance is visibly relaxing, letting his hands soak in the water, “Whoa… It’s a lot more purple than I would’ve expected, but it’s still really pretty. Look at all this glitter!”

Lance continues to play around in the water. His face suddenly lights up, grabs the camera, and angles it so all Keith can see is Lance’s legs. “Look, it’s the tumblr bathtub aesthetic,” Lance chuckles. Keith’s eyes go wide. Of course, this isn’t the first time he’s looked at his legs (some of Lance’s vlogs featured him in shorts), but it is the first time his legs are the center of attention. Keith feels his face heat up.

And all too quickly, the video cuts away to Lance standing in his bathroom wearing a white robe around his shoulders, “Well, that was really fun actually. Sorry I wasn’t talking much while I was in the bath. Unless future me edited that out then – I don’t know, I just, I had a lot of fun and I hope you guys love this video.” He winks and blows a kiss to the camera, “Bye guys, I’ll see you in the next video!”

Lance’s smile and his waving hand is the last thing Keith sees before he stuffs his face into his pillow. He tries his best to control the heat in his face, but to no avail. He gets up to open the window, and just stands there as the cool evening air hits his face. His eyes aren’t focused on anything as Keith holds onto the mental image of Lance’s legs in the bath.


	3. Stumbling but yeah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith records his first vlog with Shiro.

Once Keith believes he’s recovered enough, he checks on the stats on his first video. He’s made it to 34 views and even received two likes. There’s only one comment that reads, “ _dude i remember watching that show u mentioned, i thought it was super interesting. You seem like a cool dude, so subscribed!!_ ” Shocked, Keith quickly checks the subscriber count and lo and behold, he has obtained two subscribers. It really hits Keith that he’s going to be making videos from now on. It feels so good that he lets out an airy laugh.

Keith gets ready to shower for the night, trying not to think about a certain someone’s certain body parts. He especially doesn’t think about the smooth looking tan skin, damp and stained purple in some places from the bath water. Did Lance shave his legs, or does he have extreme fine leg hair?

Keith shakes his head, he was trying _not_ to think about Lance or his shapely legs. He glances in the bathroom mirror and finds his face tinted pink. He lets out a frustrated groan as he paws at his face, looking away from the mirror. A cold shower would probably be a good idea.

 

 

The weekend arrives and Keith is relieved. It’s nearing summer vacation, which means classes are really pushing it for finals. Keith is a decent student and turns in all his assignments on time. But now that he’s started his own youtube channel, Keith wonders how he’ll balance his new hobby. Lance had eventually stopped going to college altogether in order to focus on his youtube career.

For now though, he’s looking forward to the summer vacation as it might give him access to a wider audience. Keith leans back against the couch as he stretches. He’s looking at the stats for his latest video upload. This time, Keith elaborated on commonly known cryptids such as Bigfoot and Mothman (his personal favorite). He’s gained 103 views and quite a few comments. Some were nice, “ _I like how this guy gets straight to the point unlike other conspiracy videos that waste your time with long animated intros in their videos_ ”, some were constructive, “ _what is your sources?? u should list the sources where u get ur information so people will believe u more_ ”, and some were… well, “ _dude r u inlove with mothman or somthing, tired of these internet memes_ ”.

With a tired huff, Keith closes his laptop. His eyes are tired from staring at his computer screen from editing and studying. He contemplates taking a nap right there on the couch when he feels a hand grip his shoulder, “Keith,” Shiro moves so he stands in front of him, “don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Shiroooo,” Keith whines, “I’m tireeeed. Can’t I skip this week?”

Shiro frowns, “You already skipped last week and the week before. No way I’m letting you skip again.” He tosses Keith a water bottle. “It’ll become a habit for you to skip going to the gym with me.” Keith only groans.

He feels Shiro’s hand on his shoulder shake him a little. When Keith looks up, he sees Shiro’s sympathetic smile, “How about this? You only work out with me for just a little. It has been a while since you’ve gone and exercised. You can even bring your camera to vlog about it.”

Keith looks at him, confused, “What? Record myself at the gym?” He scoffs, “I’m not exactly a gym buff.”

“I don’t know. Just thought I could recommend ideas to you.” Shiro leaves the living room and goes into his own room to change.

Keith thinks for a moment. He _could_ make his next video be a personal vlog. Though he’ll be less in his element at the gym, there’s nothing wrong with practicing talking to a camera. Especially in public. It’s not like Keith’s shy or anything, nor is he self-conscious about his image in public. With his mind made up, Keith gets up from his comfortable spot on the couch and goes into his room to fetch his camera.

 

 

As soon as he has his seatbelt on, Keith turns on the camera and hits the record button. He angles the camera so that Shiro is in the background behind him, “Hey, so um, I’m going to go work out with my brother Shiro,” Keith shifts so that he’s behind the camera and points it directly to Shiro, “This is Shiro.”

Shiro smiles and waves at the camera. He chuckles, “Hello there.” Keith turns the camera to the front windshield of the car as it begins back up from the parking spot, “Oh, and thanks by the way for parking your bike right here last time,” Shiro points out, sarcastically, “I had fun getting out of my car just to move your bike into the garage.”

Keith turns the camera so that it faces him, capturing the slight annoyance on his face, “I said I was sorry about that.”

Keith mouths the next words that come out of Shiro, “Be thankful that we were able to find an apartment with a garage.” Keith ends up snorting from trying stifle his laughter, but Shiro notices, “Wha— were you making fun of me?” There’s no malice to his words as he smiles at Keith. “I’ll have you know, I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals—”

Keith can no longer contain his laughter, “Oh my God, Shiro.” He bends over in his seat in an effort to calm down. “That’s such an old meme.”

Shiro shrugs, “It’s my favorite, though.”

They make it to the road and talk about what they’re going to do at the gym. Once they make it to the gym parking lot, Keith spots several teenagers hanging by the juice shop next to the gym. One of them spots their car and points in their direction. Keith says, “Oh hey look, it’s your fan club.”

Shiro groans, “I do not have a fan club.”

“Oh yeah?” Keith challenges, “then how come those same kids from that high school come here every time you come to work out?”

“They must live around the neighborhood. Plus, I see nothing wrong with interacting with my students outside of class.” Shiro finds a parking spot little ways away from the gym entrance and powers down the car.

Keith turns the camera to face him, “My brother Shiro is a high school teacher, by the way.” He shuts the camera off before climbing out of the car. Once he’s out, he braces for what’s about to happen next.

He and Shiro walk towards the entrance, and that’s when the teenagers decide to swoop in, cutting them off. There’s only three girls this time, and one of them approaches Shiro first (she is who Keith assumes is the “Alpha” of the group).

She gives him a wide smile, and starts twirling her hair playfully, “Mr. Shirogane, hi!”

Shiro, who is either oblivious to the girl’s flirty approach to him or is choosing to ignore it, gives the girl a friendly wave. “Hello, are you all having a safe weekend?”

The girl practically shrills, “Of course we are.” Her gaze drops to Shiro’s chest, “Wow, Mr. Shirogane! I really like your muscle shirt! Black definitely suits you.”

Keith thought that Shiro was going to keep humoring the girl, but he heard him sigh, “I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this, but you need to look for people your own age.” The smile on the girl’s face falls. She was about to say something when Shiro cuts her off, “C’mon Keith.” He grabs Keith by the shoulder and guides him through the entrance.

Keith doesn’t look back until they’re fully inside. The alpha girl seemed to make eye contact with him (but Keith couldn’t really tell) and stormed off. The other girls glared at him before following her.

He feels a tapping on his shoulder, and when he turns around, he sees distress clear on Shiro’s face, “Sorry you had to see that. It really has been a while for you.” He tries to smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Shiro…” Keith starts, but he’s interrupted by a boisterous voice approaching them from behind.

“Well, if it isn’t Keith,” says a middle-aged ginger, “It certainly has been ages since I’ve seen you last.”

Relieved for a change in subject, Keith turns to the man, “Hey, Coran. It’s been a while.”

“It certainly has,” Coran huffs, “I got my work cut out for me, whipping you back into shape.”

“Keith’s going to take it easy today, Coran,” says Shiro. The smile he sends Keith is more genuine this time.

The two older men continue to chat away while Keith fishes out his camera. Coran immediately notices, “What do you have there, Keith? One of those new-fangled high definition cameras?”

Keith almost feels shy for bringing his camera to the gym. He shows the ginger the device, “I brought it today to vlog.”

Coran pulls at his mustache, “Vlog?”

“It’s when you record yourself and talk to the camera and stuff,” explains Keith. Coran nods his head as if he was agreeing with what he’s saying, so he explains further, “It’s for my youtube channel.”

Coran’s head snaps up, “Oh! I get it now.” He crosses his arms, “It’s about all that social media. You know my other client Allura, right? She sometimes has me take her pictures for her Instagram. She seems quite popular on there.”

Shiro’s eyes light up at the mention of Allura, “How is she by the way?” He glances at Keith, who gives him a knowing look. Shiro sheepishly looks away, and rubs at the back of his neck.

Coran didn’t seem to notice, “She’s doing well. She’ll be back from vacation in a couple of days, so don’t worry about her.”  He makes a motion of rolling up his sleeves, “So, how ‘bout we get started, gentlemen.”

 

 

Keith plops down onto one of the benches. He’s been running the treadmill with Shiro until he tripped and face planted onto the edge of the treadmill. Coran inspects his face, “Well, nothing’s broken, thank heavens,” he hands Keith his water bottle, “Take five.”

Keith takes a long sip of his water, wiping the sweat that clings to his forehead with a towel. Coran left to watch over Shiro as he uses the dumbbell. Keith takes this opportunity to take out his camera. He lifts the camera so that it’s level with his face and facing him. He presses the record button, “So, uh, me and Shiro made it to the gym and I ended up falling on the treadmill,” his hand reaches up to feel his face, feeling only slight pain, “But, yeah, I’m fine though.”

He turns the camera in the direction of Shiro, “There’s Shiro right there with his personal trainer Coran.” Keith zooms in a little bit, “You’re probably wondering about his arm, but I’ll tell you about that later.” He remains silent as he records Shiro do a couple reps with the dumbbell. He turns the camera back around, “But yeah, usually it’s the treadmill, then weight lifting, and then something like jump rope or something like that.”

He moves the camera farther away from his face so that most of his upper body is in the shot, “As you can see, I don’t work out as much as Shiro,” he lifts his other arm and flexes a bit, a grin stretches across his face as the muscle is still visibly there.

“Hey, Keith, c’mere,” calls Shiro. Keith gets up from the bench, camera still recording in his hands. When he reaches Shiro, his brother lifts his prosthetic arm to the camera, “How about you let me record you?”

Keith lifts a questioning brow, “Uh, record me doing what?”

Shiro lifts the dumbbell, “How about you lift some weights before calling it a day,” he smiles. So, Keith hands him the camera while Coran sets him up for weight lifts. After a couple of stretches, Keith starts with 15lb dumbbells in each hand. He does a couple reps under Coran’s watchful eye. Better to not have another accident.

After the weights, Keith can’t help but do a couple push-ups (mainly to show off) with Shiro still holding the camera. Shiro scoffs as he also gets down onto the ground and does some one arm push-ups of his own while making the camera face his smiling face.

Keith huffs, “Show off.”

 

 

 

The way home was uneventful as the teenagers from earlier seemed to have gone home. Keith and Shiro both exchange disgusted faces as they take sips from Coran’s latest concoction. When Keith commented about the odd smell, Coran said, “That’s how you know it’s healthy.”

After a quick shower, Keith’s on his laptop editing and uploading the video footage back at the gym. The video is about eight minutes so it takes a short while for the video to process. When the video finishes uploading, he clicks on “Done” and sits back on his bed. This might not be the most popular video, Keith thinks, but it’s better than nothing.

He pulls up his subscriptions page and clicks on Lance’s channel. His phone had notified him about another video upload while he was at the gym that afternoon but the youtube app wasn’t loading properly so he had to wait until now to watch it. It’s the weekend, so that means it’s some type of vlog. He clicks on the latest video titled, “Its literally just me dancing to Hot Mess…”

The video loads to a blank wall, probably in Lance’s living room, when Lance walks in from the side rather flamboyantly. The song starts playing.

 

_You were problem child, been grounded your whole life_

_So now you running wild, playing with them good girls_

_No, that ain’t your style_

_You think you’re hot shit oh I love it, I love it, yeah yeah_

Lance turns so his back is facing the camera and starts dancing. It’s clear that Lance has probably danced before as his moves are precise and calculated. He had mentioned in an earlier vlog that he’d taken a dance camp back in middle school.

 

_Stumbling but yeah, you’re still looking hella fine_

_Keep doing what you’re doing and I’mma make you mine_

_Well you’re a –_

Lance suddenly spins and is now facing the camera.

 

            _Hot mess and I’m falling for you_

_And I’m like, “Hot damn! Let me make you my boo”_

Now Lance starts _twerking_.

 

            _Cause you can shake it, shake it, shake it_

_Yeah you know what to do_

_You’re a hot mess_

_I’m loving it, hell yes!_

Lance keeps dancing until the chorus ends and the song fades out. The video ends with Lance approaching the camera, out of breath, “I’m a hot mess, god damn.” Leaving him confused but entertained, Keith looks to the video description for an explanation. All that it reads is, “I heard this song on the radio and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.” Keith chuckles to himself.

It’s only Saturday, so Keith decides to stay up a bit longer and maybe finish watching Lance’s old Sims 3 playthrough. He can check on his latest video’s stats tomorrow morning.

 

 

Keith shuffles into the kitchen the next morning. He reaches for the cereal and a glass of orange juice. Shiro walks into the kitchen soon after and greets his younger brother, “Hey, Keith. I hope you didn’t stay up so late last night. You need your rest, especially after a work out like that.”

Keith mumbles, “Yeah, yeah. I slept fine, Shiro, really.”

Shiro pours his own glass of juice and grabs the toaster from the cupboard, “Oh hey, how is our video by the way.”

“ _Our_ video?”

“Yeah,” Shiro plugs in the toaster and places two slices of bread in both open slots, “You know, the one we recorded together yesterday.”

Keith takes a gulp of his dry cereal, “I didn’t know you wanted to be part of this whole, becoming-a-youtuber thing.”

“Well, I didn’t say that, I was just curious is all.”

“Yeah, since you’re in it.” Keith finishes his bowl and places it in the sink, “I’m about to go check right now, but I doubt there’ll be much of anything.” He walks out of the kitchen and into his room. He opens his laptop and opens his internet browser. The youtube home page loads and Keith clicks on “My Channel”. He goes under the Video Manager sees the list of his three videos he’s uploaded so far. He has to do a double take on the latest one because he cannot believe the number of views it has.

Over two thousand views.

He clicks on the video and scrolls down to see a total of sixteen comments. He quickly reads over all of them, most were nice compliments about his brother (some a bit more promiscuous than others). Keith can feel the adrenaline pumping through him. He stumbles as he gets out of his room and runs to the kitchen, “Shiro! You’re not gonna believe _this_!”


	4. Strawberry Lemonade Smoothie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Shiro do a Q&A video, have a heart to heart, and hang out with Allura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to up the rating as there'll be more mature content.

It’s only been a couple of hours and Keith is still sitting in front of his laptop, staring at and refreshing the Video Manager page. He watches in awe as the viewer count continues to steadily climb up. Of course, he’d shown Shiro and they read the comments together. Although most of the comments were talking about his older brother, Keith did receive some compliments himself, things like: “ _looking real fit bro, oh and shiro too_ ”, “ _I guess good looks run in the family_ ”, and “ _while your big bro IS really hot, you’re quite good looking urself_ ”.

By nightfall, the workout video has reached almost six thousand views. The comments have reached over a hundred and Keith has been keeping track of each one. While the whole situation was exciting, in the back of his mind, Keith worries if this will just be a one-time thing. As he reads comment after comment, he thinks about the next video and how it _has_ to be just as good, if not, better than this video. Something his newfound subscribers would like. And thanks to this video’s popularity, Keith’s conspiracy videos got more attention themselves, both peaking at just above a thousand views.

Keith is so absorbed into his laptop that he doesn’t hear Shiro open his bedroom door. Shiro gives a hard knock against the doorframe as he leans against it, “Hey, Keith,” Keith finally looks up, “it’s time for dinner. We’re having pan fried fish.”

Keith smiles, “What? No more macaroni?” He feigns disappointment, “Aw, Shiro. I was starting to get used to it.”

Shiro grabs a pillow from Keith’s bed and throws it at him, “Consider it a treat.”

Keith scrambles to swat the pillow away before siting up and walking to the kitchen with his brother. Once there, he smells the fish that’s sitting on the table along with some pasta salad. He places a hand over his stomach as it rumbles, “Seriously though, I don’t miss the mac n’ cheese, like, at all.”

They wash their hands together and settle themselves on their little dinner table. Keith is in no hurry to eat this time. While he _is_ anxious to see how far the video’s popularity will go, he wants more time to go by before checking again.

Shiro breaks the silence between them, “So, what’s the next video going to be about?”

Keith chews thoughtfully, “Still have no idea-”

“Keith! Don’t chew with your mouth open.”

Keith pouts before he finishes chewing his food and swallows, “As I was saying, I’ve been thinking about it but I still don’t know yet.” He lets a hand settle under his chin and leans on it.

“Elbows off the table please,” points Shiro, “Well, how about interacting with your new audience.”

“Interact with them?” Keith lifts an eyebrow, “You mean like those reading-your-comments videos?”

Shiro shrugs, “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I don’t really watch other youtubers.” Keith thinks on that for a moment. There have been quite a lot of comments. He was debating whether or not to respond to each one, if not, most of them. It would increase his likability for sure. Or maybe he could set up a Q & A. He’s sure that maybe some people might have some questions. He could make a new separate video for people to leave their questions at. It would all depend on the number of subscribers he has.

Keith sits up, “Okay, I’m thinking of a Q & A.” Shiro smiles at him, “Thanks Shiro, for helping.”

Shiro pats him on the shoulder, “No problem.”

 

 

After dinner, Keith sets up the camera on the tripod. He’s going to film in the living this time, with the camera facing the couch. Keith had asked if Shiro was okay with being in his video again, and his brother was happy to oblige. Once he feels the camera is at the right height and angle, Keith presses the record button and takes his seat on the couch next to Shiro.

“Hey, there,” says Keith, Shiro silently waves his prosthetic hand, “After that workout video, you guys probably have some questions. So, I’m opening a sort of Q & A. Just leave your questions in the comments on _this_ video and in the next one, we’ll answer them.”

“Seems simple enough,” comments Shiro, “Oh, by the way, what did you call that video? Must’ve been something interesting, right?”

Keith turns to Shiro, “I just called it ‘Going for a workout’.”

Shiro’s eyes widen slightly, “What? Really?”

Keith playfully shoves him to the side, “What did you think I would title it?”

Shiro thinks for a moment, “I thought you called it something really eye-catching? Like, uh… oh! Something like ‘Two Bros Sweating It Out’?”

Keith says without thinking, “Now that just sounds like a porno.”

Shiro gasps, “Keith!”

“Anyway!” Keith says, much louder than he intended. He starts to giggle at his brother’s reaction, “Please send us your comments and questions and we’ll get to them soon.” He gets off of the couch and shuts the camera off. He’s still giggling as he says, “I’ll edit that out.”

Shiro deadpans, “No you won’t.”

There’s a silent pause. Both brothers stare each other down, not relenting, until Keith finally speaks up, “You’re right, I won’t.” They both laugh.

 

 

It’s a late Monday afternoon when both Keith and Shiro sit together on the couch with Keith’s laptop. Keith scrolls through all the comments on his Q & A announcement video. There’s quite a bit considering his subscriber count increased substantially to over three hundred. He turns to Shiro, “Are you ready to answer these questions?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” replies Shiro. He gets up from his spot on the couch and checks that the camera is angled correctly before hitting the record button. “Okay, it’s recording.”

Keith waves at the camera and smiles, “Hey, guys. I’m here with my brother Shiro again,” Shiro takes his seat next to Keith, “and we’re about to answer your questions. I’ve looked over all of them and we’re going to answer a handful of them, not all of them ‘cause some are either repeats or just, we’re just _not_ going to answer.”

“Yeah, some of them are…” says Shiro, “…weird, to say the least.”

Keith sits up, “Okay, here we go.” He looks down to his laptop screen and reads the first question aloud, “’Is Shiro the oldest?’ Yeah, Shiro’s older by about five years.”

“Yeah, I’m 27 while Keith is 22,” says Shiro.

Keith continues, “’Is Shiro also into conspiracy theories?’ Uh, why don’t you answer this one, Shiro.”

Shiro sighs, “Technically no, but I do keep hearing about it from my brother over here, who’s just so excited over that type of stuff.” He lightly punches Keith in the arm.

Keith smiles and reads the next question, “’What made you want to start your own youtube channel?’”, Keith pauses to think for a moment. Should he be honest? Should he come right out and say that he wants to meet and get to know a famous youtuber? No, people will get the wrong idea. People might think that he only wants attention and won’t take being a youtuber seriously. But then again, everyone tries to get attention in some way, right?

Before he could answer though, Shiro answers for him, “To be honest, Keith did look up to someone who is doing youtube stuff of their own,” Keith turns to Shiro, his mouth slightly agape, “I won’t name any names, but let’s just say that this person really inspired Keith here.” He clamps a hand on Keith’s shoulder and smiles.

Keith lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding, “Thanks, Shiro.” He looks down at his laptop, “Okay, uh, ‘how did Shiro lose his arm?’” Keith didn’t realize the question he was reading until it was too late. His eyes widen as he turns to Shiro, “Sorry, I should have- I mean, I can just edit that out. You don’t have to answer.”

Shiro looked solemnly at the laptop screen, “No, it’s okay.” He gives Keith a gentle smile before facing the camera, “I was actually enlisted in the military. I was eighteen at the time when I volunteered. I was in the military for only about two years until I sustained an injury while on duty.” Shiro clenches his prosthetic arm. Keith didn’t know much about what the military did exactly but he got the basic gist of what happened to Shiro. He was out on an operation that involved clearing some mines and apparently, they didn’t thoroughly clear the area as a mine went off. Shiro was pretty near the explosion that did its damage to his right arm.

Shiro remains as calm as ever and gives Keith a reassuring smile, “Okay Keith, onto the next question.” Keith is silent for a moment and just looks at Shiro. There is no pain or regret on his face, only acceptance.

Keith tears his gaze away and reads the next question, almost robotically, “Okay, uh, ‘if the two of you are brothers, how come you don’t look alike?’” Pleased with the subject change, he turns to the camera and says, “Well, that’s ‘cause I’m adopted. Both of our parents were family friends and we we’re neighbors for a while.” Keith smiles as he remembers playing outside in the street with Shiro, “We we’re practically brothers already, since the both of us never had any siblings. But yeah, Shiro’s Japanese while I’m, like, one fourth Korean.”

They continue their Q & A session with mainly fun questions for the remainder of their recording. By the time they finish, Shiro stands up to take a shower, but not before Keith speaks up, “Um, Shiro?” Shiro turns to Keith, a questioning look on his face. Keith feel somewhat shy all of a sudden, but powers through anyway, “Thanks for being here.” He looks away.

Shiro smiles warmly at Keith, “Hey, it was no problem. It was fun.”

Keith hesitates to ask his next question, “Do you, uh, still get the nightmares?” Shiro is silent for a moment and Keith thinks he might have said something he wasn’t supposed to until Shiro puts a hand on the top of Keith’s head.

Shiro bends down a little until he’s level with Keith, “I still do sometimes, but hey,” he ruffles Keith’s hair a little, “it’s not something for you to worry about.” He straightens up and leaves to the bathroom. Keith just stands there and feels his own hair. Shiro hadn’t done that in _years_. The last time he’d done that was back when he was about eleven when his dad had died in a car accident. It was at the end of the funeral event when everyone had gone home, leaving young Keith alone to stare down at his dad’s grave, right next to his mom’s. Keith felt utterly alone until Shiro came by his side and placed a hand on his head. Shiro had bent down until he was eye to eye with Keith and said, “Hey, buddy. Everything is going to be alright. Don’t even worry about it.” And ruffled his hair.

Keith’s eyes sting at the memory.

 

 

On a boring Tuesday afternoon in class, Keith is semi focusing on the review lecture. He’s been listing a few more ideas for his next video. He felt he could get away with slacking off a little bit. It’s only trigonometry class and Keith feels he has the content down already. He’s going down the list when his phone vibrates. He takes out his phone and finds a text from Shiro. He checks the time and sees that it’s a little after noon, it must be lunch time right now.

Keith opens the text message that reads, “ _Hey, I just got a message from Coran that Allura’s back from vacation! Coran suggested that we meet her this Thursday afternoon. Would you like to come?_ ”

Keith smiles to himself, of course Shiro would be excited about Allura. He types out his response, “ _Sure. Sounds good to me._ ” He moves to put his phone away until it vibrates again in his hand. That was quick.

Shiro replied, “ _Great! Especially since I already told Coran you would come *sweat drop emoji*_ ” Keith shakes his head, oh Shiro.

 

 

It’s Thursday afternoon when Shiro and Keith make it to the juice shop by the gym where Coran had arranged for everyone to meet up. They enter through the door of the shop and find Coran sitting in one of the little tables. He waves at them, “Over here!” Shiro and Keith make their way over to the table and sit down. Keith notices the four smoothies that are sitting in front of Coran in a little cardboard tray. Coran gestures to the smoothies, “I’ve ordered some refreshments from this fine establishment,” he pulls at his mustache, “Pick whichever one you like, I have no preference.” Keith moves to take the pink drink when Coran shield the cup with his hands, “Except this one, it’s Allura’s.”

Keith was about to say something when Coran looks up and says, “Oh! Speak of the devil.” Keith turns around and sees the tall, dark skinned woman wearing a bright floral sundress and a pair of sunglasses. Her long silver hair is tied back into a neat ponytail. She removes her sunglasses to get a better look around. Her bright blue eyes shining as she spots them. No wonder Shiro was so eager on the car ride over here.

Allura takes her seat next to Coran, “Hello, gentlemen. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting for too long.”

Shiro grins as he faces her, “No, we just got here ourselves.” He nods his head towards the drinks, “Coran got us some smoothies. Apparently, the pink one is yours.”

Allura’s face lights up, “Oh! Thank you, Coran. It certainly is starting to warm up around here.” She takes the pink smoothie out of the tray and takes a sip from it. She squeals in delight.

Keith and Shiro take a pick from what’s left. Keith ends up with a dark green concoction. Knowing Coran, it’s probably meant to be super healthy and loaded with vitamins but will most likely end up tasting funny. He takes a tentative sip and his nose scrunches up a little bit. “Coran, what it this?”

“It’s a mixture of greens and citrus.”

“It’s a bit sour though.”

Coran pulls at his mustache in thought, “Well, the citrus might only consist of lemons…”

Shiro moves to take the drink away from Keith, “You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it-”

But Keith swats Shiro’s hand away, “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” He pouts.

Shiro laughs, “Oh right, you tend to like sour things.” He sneaks a glance at Allura, who is giggling at the display. He asks her, “So, how does yours taste like?”

Allura looks down at her smoothie, “Oh, this? It’s strawberry lemonade, so it’s rather delicious. A friend of mine got me hooked onto the taste of lemonade at the moment.”

Shiro smiles at her, “That’s good to hear.”

Coran clears his throat, “While I’d love to stay and chat, I’m only on break. I better get back to training at the gym.” He gets up from the table and winks in Shiro’s general direction. Shiro blushes a little bit and pretends not to notice.

After Coran leaves the shop, Allura speaks up, “Why don’t we go to the mall today? We can just wander around the shops, if you want.”

Shiro recovers and replies, “Sure, that sounds like fun.” He turns to Keith, who’s just sipping at his drink, “Keith, do you wanna come with?”

Keith frowns a little at his smoothie and says, “Uh, well, I don’t have anything else to do, I guess.”

Allura stands up, clapping her hands together, “Splendid! Oh, I hope you don’t mind taking me with you in your car. I didn’t drive here myself today, a friend brought me here.”

Shiro lifts an amused eyebrow, “Is it the lemonade friend?”

Allura laughs, “How on earth did you know?”

He shrugs casually, “Just a lucky guess.”

Allura grabs her drink and leaves the shop first. Shiro was about to follow her until Keith pulled him aside. He makes sure Allura is out of ear shot before speaking in a hushed tone, “Dude! That was your chance to be with Allura. Why did you invite me?”

Shiro rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, “I don’t know. Just, I just panicked.” He pauses, and points an accusatory finger at Keith, “Wait, why did _you_ accept?”

Keith fumbles for words when Allura’s voice echoes from a distance, “Boys! Are you ready to go or not?”

“We’re coming!” responds Keith. He pulls at Shiro’s arm, “Let’s, uh, get going then.” They lead Allura to Shiro’s car. Keith volunteers to sit in the back, “I’ll hang back here so you can sit in the front with Shiro, Allura.” Allura thanks him and Shiro doesn’t know whether to be grateful to Keith or to panic inside. He chooses the latter.

Once they are all settled, Shiro starts the car and begins driving. The nearest mall is in the next town over, so the drive could take about a good twenty minutes. They all sit in comfortable silence until Allura decides to speak up, “So, Shiro. How has your work been?”

Shiro side-eyes her but keeps his eyes on the road, “It’s been the same. Nothing really new to report,” he laughs nervously, “Oh, but Keith here has started his own Youtube channel.”

Allura’s eyes widen, “Really?” She turns in her seat to look back at Keith, “I was considering starting a Youtube channel myself, but haven’t got around to it. What do you do?”

“Uh, well,” Keith begins, “I only have four videos up so far, well, technically five, but one doesn’t count since it’s more of an announcement type of video. Anyway, I started out with just talking about conspiracy theories but the video that has the _most_ attention right now is this workout video me and Shiro did together. It has almost sixteen thousand views, last time I checked, which was this morning by the way-”

Keith continues to ramble about his channel and about the list of ideas he made. All the while, both Shiro and Allura nod silently. Keith didn’t realize that they made it to the mall’s parking lot until Shiro powered down the car. “We’re here,” announced Shiro.

 

 

The three of them had spent about an hour just looking around the mini stores. Shiro and Allura bought some clothes for themselves while Keith insisted he didn’t need anything. Shiro made a point to tease Keith when they walked past a Hot Topic.

Allura stops in front of a makeup stand, “How about you boys keep going. I need to pick up some things from here.”

Shiro smiles at her, “Okay. We’ll be heading toward the food court, so you can find us there.” They wave as they depart. Now would probably be a good time to check out Lance’s afternoon upload for the day. His phone had notified him on the car ride here but Keith was too engrossed in explaining his plans for his own Youtube channel to notice. Shiro smiles as he looks down at his brother, proud of his success in his new hobby.

Keith scrolls through his subscription until he finds the new video. It’s Thursday, which is a video game day. Lance is currently playing the Sims 4, so the upload will most likely be about that. Keith and Shiro continue to walk towards the food court, not really paying attention when a familiar tall, tan, and handsome fellow walks past them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out my tumblr! @sweetboylance!


	5. Makeover!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to see a little bit of Lance's past, and Allura invites herself into Keith's next video.

That Thursday afternoon proved to be a scorcher. Well, not so much anymore when inside a spacious and air conditioned mall. It’s especially spacious since it’s not even the weekend. At a particular table in the food court, three friends are lounging around, bored out of their minds. The smallest one out of their group is slightly hunched over her laptop, hands gliding across the keyboard. She occasionally will take a sip of her soda as her glasses shine from the light of her laptop screen. The other two are lazily talking about whatever comes to mind, though one of them is visibly checking out girls that walk by. The other groans, “Lance, please.”

Lance sits up, “What?” His friend only covers his face with his hand as he shakes his head. Lance shifts uncomfortably in his seat, “I’m just bored, Hunk. Sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t interested in what you were saying.”

“It’s not that,” says Hunk, “It’s just that, I’ve been thinking – and you might not like this, but I think it’s about time you found yourself a steady girlfriend or boyfriend.”

Lance scoffs, “Like that’ll be easy.” He pretends to inspect his nails, “I mean, I _am_ pretty damn handsome. You would wonder where all the ladies and gentlemen are lining up to me.” He blows at his fist and rubs it against his shirt, a satisfied smile on his face.

“You are the epitome of beauty, Lance,” mutters the small one.

Lance ignores the slight sarcasm in that remark, “Why, thank you, Pidge.” Pidge groans softly. Lance’s face morphs from confidence to concern as he says, “Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve never thought about it. It’s just that, I’m worried what my online fans will think if I start going out again.” He looks at Hunk, “You remember what happened with Nyma, right?”

Hunk nodded. He did indeed remember how Lance and Nyma went out for almost a year before Lance decided to announce his relationship to his viewers. The reactions were mixed, to say the least. Lance was heartbroken when he and Nyma separated. He saw how the pressure and the hate was getting to her and thought breaking up would be the best solution. Lance has himself to blame; if he had kept quiet about his relationships, would he still be with Nyma now? No, if he truly loved the other person, which he did, he wouldn’t feel ashamed and hide it.

It had been almost three years since their break up, but the pain was still there albeit small. But Lance knew better now than to let some internet hate get between him and his future partner (if he ever finds one again). He continues to wallow in his self-pity when Hunk points out, “Hey, isn’t that Allura over there?” Lance instantly perks up. Allura? Didn’t he just drop her off at some juice shop the last town over? But if she really _is_ here, Lance wasn’t about to question it.

He scans the area across from them and spots Allura standing in front of a makeup stand, talking with a couple of guys Lance had never seen before. Maybe one of them was trying to flirt with her? No, that can’t be it, she’s smiling at them. They wave goodbye to each other as the guys leave. Perfect. It’s his chance to go say hi to her.

Lance hops out of his seat, straightens his clothes, and puts on his sunglasses, “I’ll be right back,” he grins. He starts walking to Allura’s general direction. The distance is pretty far, so Lance has the opportunity to check these guys out. One of them is rather tall, taller and more muscular than Lance that’s for sure. He’s wearing a black tank that show’s off his arms nicely (and Lance did notice the prosthetic, mind you).

He’s smiling down at the other, shorter guy next to him. He’s looking down at his phone. He must be texting someone or something because he started smiling down on his phone. Must be a girlfriend. It takes a while for Lance to realize that that guy has a mullet. Who even has mullets anymore? Aside from that, the guy’s pretty handsome. Emphasis on the word “pretty” ‘cause _damn,_ upon closer inspection from walking past him, he has really pretty eyes.

It’s tempting to just turn around and say hi to them. Maybe get their names and flirt a little with the shorter one. Lance is debating doing just that as he slows to a stop and stands there, looking back at them. But his thoughts are interrupted when a familiar voice calls out to him, “Lance?”

Lance turns around to find Allura standing right behind him. Right. He was here to chat with Allura. Lance puts on his suavest smile and finger guns at her, “How’s it going, princess? Fancy meeting you here.”

Allura rolls her eyes as she groans, “What did I say about you calling me that?” The “princess” came from her internet handle as “Princess Allura” and many of her followers referred to her as such. But when it came to personal friends, it’s almost embarrassing to say the least. She crosses her arms as she eyes Lance, “And what are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to hang out with Pidge and Hunk after dropping me off?”

Lance moves his sunglasses to the top of his head and places a hand on his hip, “I am. It was Hunk’s idea to come to the mall.” He debates whether he should bring up the guys from before. Just how did Allura know them? So, he asks, “I saw you talking with a couple of guys earlier. Are they, like, your other friends, or something?”

She smiles, “Yes. Well, I’m more familiar with one of them. And one of them has started his own Youtube channel.” Allura looks fondly at Lance, “It reminded me of when you first started. You were really excited at the time. And I couldn’t help but see his excitement and think of you.” She sighs.

Lance is silent for a moment, and really absorbs Allura’s words. He then cocks an eyebrow and smirks, “Is this your way of hitting on me?” That earns him a punch in the arm.

“I was trying to be sentimental,” Allura frowns. She sighs again as she gathers her bags, “I’ve got to get going. My friends are waiting for me.”

“Are you heading to the food court? ‘Cause that’s where I just came from,” Lance starts to walk beside Allura, “And I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood for remembering the past right now.”

Allura gives him a sympathetic smile, “I understand.” They continue to walk together in silence until they make it to Lance’s table.

Hunk spots Lance, “Hey, man. It’s almost time for me to head to class. Mind taking me to campus?” He laughs nervously.

Lance grins at his friend, “Hey, it’s no problem, big guy. Pidge, what about you?”

“I guess I could head home,” says Pidge. She shuts down her laptop and closes it.

Lance digs his car keys out of his pockets and spins the key ring around his slender finger, “Alright, guys. Let’s get going.” He turns to Allura, a sincere look on his face, “Was nice talking to you, Allura.” They wave goodbye as they go their separate ways.

About two tables over, Shiro watches as Allura waves to her other friends. The tall one didn’t miss a beat as he finger guns towards her and flashes a dazzling smile as he walks away. Allura rolls her eyes, but the smile doesn’t leave her face. Shiro sighs as a grin spreads across his face. Allura must have been quite popular in her personal life as she is on her social media. Who wouldn’t like Allura? She’s nice, understanding, smart, and even beautiful. If she were ever to pursue a relationship… god, why is he even thinking about that? It’s not really his business to be thinking about her love life. He clears those thoughts away as she approaches their table, a smile on her face with a wave of her hand.

 

 

“You want to help me?” Keith asks. He raises a confused eyebrow as he takes a sip of his caprisun. After the mall, they had decided to head home for the day, which prompted Keith to invite Allura to their apartment. It’s not the first time she came over but it threw Shiro into a panic on the way home nonetheless.

Allura nods her head, “Yes. I may or may not have mentioned this before, but one of my other friends had started his own Youtube channel a few years ago. It took quite a while for him to make it to where he is today. And, I know you’re not the most patient person I know,” she gestures to Keith’s camera sitting on the coffee table, “So, I want to appear in your next video. It’s what I believe to be the best way for me to help you.”

Keith nods his head in understanding. She was right about his patience. While he was eternally grateful for his small audience right now, that audience is not entirely connected to Lance. And it could probably take a couple of years for his content to reach Lance at all. Keith combs a hand through his hair and ruffles it a little in frustration, “Okay, but, what are we gonna do? In the video, I mean.”

When he turns to look at Allura, he could see her eyes practically sparkling as she eyes him. His hand is still in his hair when he looks at Shiro, who has his hand over his mouth in a vain attempt to hide his grin. Finding no help there, he turns back to Allura, “What? What is it?”

Allura squeals in her seat on the couch, “I think I may have an idea.”

 

 

The following weekend, Keith is in the shower, doing a thorough washing of his hair as Allura had instructed him. While Keith’s showering, Shiro had left with Allura to help her get some “things”. Allura didn’t spare Keith a single detail about her idea. All she told him was that he had to have his hair and face washed when she got back. Keith has his suspicions about what all this could be about, but he trusts Allura.

He finishes his shower, towel dries himself, and goes to his room to change into cleaner clothes. Because of the heat, he opts for a pair of jersey shorts and a loose black t-shirt. He comes out of his room just in time to see the door unlock, and in come in Shiro with Allura right behind him, carrying a few plastic bags. Allura sees Keith and smiles, “We’re back, Keith!”

Keith eyes the plastic bags carefully as he responds, “Hey. I washed up just like you said.” Allura walks up to Keith, getting a little into his personal space. She grabs at his cheeks, feeling the skin with her thumbs.

She then inspects his hair and notices how damp it is, “Do you have a blow-dryer around here?” Keith replies that they don’t have one, to which Allura finds a towel and massages the it on Keith’s head rather roughly, “I guess towel and air drying will have to do. It should be dry enough by the time we begin filming.”

Keith grunts as she continues to molest his head with the towel, “Just, what are we doing exactly? I think I have the right to know by now.”

Shiro laughs at the display, “Oh, you’re going to love it.” He begins to empty out the plastic bags, taking out brush tools, round and shiny boxes, a clear bottle of some kind of cream, and… lipstick? Keith swallows. Just what did he get himself into?

Allura finally removes the towel from his head, giving in a good shake, “Okay, let’s get ready!” Her eyes are sparkling as she looks at Keith, “Oh, I’m so excited!”

 

 

Allura is, Keith learned, a _huge_ fan of makeovers. He knew that she was an avid user of makeup herself, based on her Instagram pictures which often contained either selfies or photos of the materials she used. So there he is, sitting in his living room couch with the camera on its tripod, filming Allura apply makeup to his face. She had promised him she wasn’t going to do anything crazy. Just some “contouring” to do a “no-makeup” look, whatever any of that meant, Keith had no idea.

It felt odd having stuff added to his face, though the big brush felt rather pleasant gliding across his face. Keith was starting to get used to it until Allura started poking something into his eye. He yelped, “Ah! Okay, what is that?”

“It’s mascara. See?” She lifts the mascara brush and mimics applying it to her lashes, “It’s for your eyelashes.”

Keith still tires to blink the pain away, “Do I really need that?”

Allura nods her head, “Yes. While your eyelashes are a bit naturally curled, they need to be fuller. Now, look up and try to hold still.” Keith whines as he does so, “I thought you’ve worn eye makeup before.”

His voice strains as he responds, “Yeah, but it’s been, like, a few years. So…” He hears Shiro snickering from his seat behind the camera. Keith growls, “Shiro, I swear to fuck.”

Shiro’s still chuckling as he says, “Hey, mind your language.”

Keith tries his best to remain still for Allura while ignoring his brother’s laughter. He might not be able to edit that out, but the sound of Allura’s voice commentating on her work on Keith should be enough to drown it out. Once Allura announces she’s done with the makeup, Keith lets out a sigh of relief, “Can I look in a mirror now, or…”

But Allura grips him by the shoulders, “I need you to turn around for me, so that your back faces me. We’re not done yet.” Keith groans, but does as he’s told. Now Allura has a full view of Keith’s semi-long hair. With all the time spent on the makeup portion of the makeover done, his hair had dried properly enough. With an eager smile on her face, she goes to work. She grabs a portion of his hair above his bangs and starts braiding it. She turns to the camera and continues commentating, “I’m going to give Keith a braided, side ponytail. I was originally going to give him a full braid, but I thought a ponytail would look better on him.”

With deft fingers, she weaves the braid in place and wraps the rest of his hair with a hair tie into a side ponytail over his left shoulder. Allura steps back, viewing Keith at all angles. Then finally, she claps her hands together, “All done! Keith, you look very pretty!” Keith blushes a little as he lifts a tentative hand to feel the braid and the side ponytail.

Allura gets her purse and takes out a medium sized hand mirror, “Here, take a look at yourself!” Keith takes the hand mirror and brings it up to his face. He’s shocked when he sees his face, “My, you’re practically glowing!” says Allura.

Thanks to Allura’s magic, most of the slight blemishes and scars on his face were gone. The contouring shaped his face nicely without it being too much. He looks at his eyelashes and how much fuller they are. His eyebrows are a lot more shaped from being painfully plucked earlier and being filled in a little. The lipstick on his lips didn’t stand out as much as Keith thought it would. The color complemented the color of his face nicely.

Keith grabs the camera and moves his head from side to side, “So, what do you guys think? Be sure to let me know with your comments, ‘cause I do read them.” He grins as he says, “I bet I look good, don’t I?”

Allura sidles into the shot, “And don’t worry, I’m going to donate all this makeup as I doubt you’ll use them, Keith.”

“That’s true, and a good idea, actually,” says Keith. “Anyway, I’ll see you guys in the next video.” They both wave at the camera, and Keith leans into the camera and _kisses_ the lens. Fortunately, the lipstick didn’t smear it. Allura gasps and Shiro spits out the water he’s drinking.

 

 

Lance lounges across his bed on Sunday morning. He’s currently taking a break from recording his Sims 4 playthrough. He can finish it up in a few minutes and send the video footage to his editor Pidge. He’s scrolling through his Instagram feed on his phone when he sees a photo of Allura with what looks like the pretty boy from the mall. He looked awfully cute pouting slightly in the picture with the ponytail. You almost couldn’t tell it was a mullet.

He would’ve continued to scroll down until he glances at the caption. It reads, “I gave my friend Keith a makeover!! Go check out the process video and his youtube channel! youtube.com/watch?v=9fif-k3XTaM”. Lance could not believe it. Allura appeared in a youtube video? Many people in the fashion and beauty section of youtube had tried to invite her into one of their videos and every time, she would decline. She even refused to be in any of Lance’s videos. What made this guy so special?

Lance taps on the link. The youtube app loads and then the video starts with the guy waving at the camera with Allura sitting next to him on some couch. He looked freshly showered given by the dampness of his hair. The video goes on to Allura talking as she gives this “Keith” guy a makeover, starting with concealer makeup and ending with the hair. Lance had to admit, the guy did end up looking real good.

Lance _could_ text Allura about how in the world he got her into one of his own videos. He checked the subscriber count, only a bit over eight hundred. That meant he’s a bit new to youtube.

Or, he could leave a comment on this guy’s video to really shake him up. So he does that. He reads his comment over and over until he’s satisfied with it and presses “Send.” It reads, “Wow, you really turned out to be a real pretty boy. Not like you weren’t a pretty boy before ;)”. It’s not until he’s sent it that Lance thinks that maybe this guy might not know who he is. Oh well, it was the truth, so no harm in saying so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The youtube link in the fic leads to an actual video. It's a voltron edit and it's real cool, y'all should check it out.
> 
> Also, [this](http://pophaircuts.com/images/2014/11/Braided-Side-Ponytail-for-Medium-Hair-Women-Hairstyles-2015.jpg) is the hairstyle that I used for Keith.


	6. Spicy Wings for a Spicy Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith finishes up his finals and rushes to get the next video out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your lovely comments! <3 I do read them as a motivator to get these chapters out to you guys on time.

Lance sighs as he leans back against his computer chair, done with recording Sims for the day. He opens his email to send the raw footage to Pidge. It takes a while to send as the files are a bit large. During that, Lance can’t help but think about that Keith guy. What kind of channel does he run that caught Allura’s attention? Lance quickly opens his internet browser and goes to Youtube. Ah, but what was that guy’s channel name again? Lance forgot to check. So instead, he goes to Allura’s Instagram on his desktop and looks for that link.

But before he clicks on it, maybe he should check out the comments people have left on her photo. He begins to scroll through, finding many of the comments about how attractive Keith is. Some are as shocked as Lance was about Allura finally appearing in a youtube video. Once he’s had enough, Lance clicks on the link to the video. The video loads again like before.

Lance decides that maybe he should check the comments on the video too. He lets the video play as he scrolls. People seemed to have swarmed to his comment as his is the top one. The replies say things like, “ _OMG ITS LANCE”, “omg hi lance_!!”, and “ _lance, ur not gay r u_??” to which that was replied with a defensive, “ _hes bi dont u know that_ ”.

Lance cracks a smile, very thankful for his understanding fans. He scrolls back up in time to see Keith get poked in the eye with the mascara brush. Lance laughs. He continues to watch through the entire video again. Lance flusters a bit when Keith kisses the camera lens. It must be his imagination, but Lance didn’t get flustered at all when he watched it the first time.

He looks back at his comment and grins to himself. There’s no way that Keith guy won’t ignore his comment or the way he seemed to have people flock to him.

 

 

Keith slouches in his chair at his desk, twirling a pencil in his hand. It’s nearing 9PM when Shiro knocks on his bedroom door. He pokes his head in through the open door, “Hey Keith, I’m about to head to bed. It’s about time you do the same.” Keith only hums in response. “Look, I know you’ve been studying and you’re anxious about how this video turned out, but you need your rest if you want to be able to make it through finals starting tomorrow.”

Keith buries his head in his crossed arms on top of his open textbook, “Shiro,” he groans, “At least let me stay up a little longer.”

Shiro walks up to Keith’s slouching form, “You didn’t manage your time properly and you’re now trying to study in the last minute, aren’t you?” Keith weakly nods his head. Shiro sighs, “You were busy because you were so excited about this youtube thing, I understand.” He grabs Keith’s arm and begins to hoist him over his shoulder, “But you need your rest.”

Keith yelps in surprise, “Wha-! Shiro!” Try as he might, his brother is too strong for him. He flails as he’s thrown on his bed and his bed covers fly over him. The light on his desk turns off and before he knows it, Shiro’s by his side again. Keith sits up so he can properly stare down his brother, “Shiro, please. I’ve got to at least pass this semester.”

His brother pats him on the shoulder and smiles at him, “You will, don’t worry. You’ve done all of your assignments, right?” Keith nods, “Right. And, it’s not like you have _all_ of your finals taking place tomorrow. Only for the next couple of days. You have plenty of time to cram for the others.”

“I thought you didn’t approve of cramming,” deadpans Keith.

Shiro laughs, “Hey, I was once a college student too, you know. I’d be more worried if you slacked off the entire semester.” He gets up to leave and before he closes the door, he sticks his head in one last time and says, “Goodnight, buddy.” And soundlessly shuts the door. The door almost immediately opens again, “You brushed your teeth already, right?”

“Yes.” Keith groans. Shiro laughs and closes the door again.

 

 

Lance just got the notification from Pidge that his Tuesday morning video uploaded successfully. He goes to check the video out and see that everything’s in order, from the title, the length of the video, and the links in the description box. And as usual, things are in their rightful place. Lance scrolls down a little to see the early comments. Though he should really wait about an hour after the upload, Lance can’t help but look at the first comments as those ones are what end up getting buried. Most of them say the dumb “First!!1” comment, so Lance decides to close the video.

For some reason, Lance’s fingers automatically open the youtube app again and searches for that video again. He checks his comment again and it doesn’t seem like the Keith guy replied or anything. Maybe he saw it and didn’t think much of it? Does this guy usually reply to comments? Curious, Lance presses the channel name “KeithKogane” (how original) and scrolls through all the videos. The channel only has five videos so far with the most popular one at almost fifty thousand views, and it’s only been up for a week. But the one with Allura is slowly catching up to that with about thirty-five thousand views just this past twenty-four hours.

Bored and having nothing else better to do, Lance decides to watch some of KeithKogane’s videos. He starts with the most popular one first, titled “Going for a Workout”. And sure enough, it’s about those two exact guys Lance saw at the mall. The other guy is apparently called “Shiro”, based on the short introduction.

Lance gets to the part where Keith flexes for the camera. He grins, at least this guy wasn’t a total noodle. He flexes his own arm and feels his bicep. It certainly has been a while since he’s gone to a gym. He hums to himself, this guy just inspired his next vlog.

He keeps going with the rest of the videos. He even watches the conspiracy videos, which leave him feeling kind of sleepy. Not that they were boring or anything, there’s just something about this guy’s talking voice that makes nice background noise to fall asleep to. Lance had to admit, this guy was a looker with a nice voice to boot. Before he knows it, Lance has fallen asleep on his bed with the video still playing.

 

 

Keith breathes a huge sigh of relief on Wednesday when he exits the last final for the entire semester. He practically runs across campus towards the parking lot. He wants to get home to start recording his next video. Because of all the prepping and studying, he hasn’t had time to plot his next video or even look at how his most recent video is doing. Shiro assured him that he’ll get more out of waiting for the video to get views.

Keith hurriedly puts on his helmet as he approaches his bike. He jumps on and immediately revs it up. As he’s going, Keith thinks of any possible vlog ideas or themes to talk about in his next video. He plans to record _and_ upload to day to make up for the missing slot on Tuesday. Shiro can’t be in this one as his school is still in session right now and will be for the next couple of hours. And it’s barely noon!

And his bike is going to need its monthly maintenance pretty soon. Keith groans to himself as he thinks about weighing his priorities right now. It isn’t until he’s in the apartment parking lot that he thinks about maybe combining those priorities somehow… Of course! He opens the garage and walks his bike inside. As soon as he does that, he leaves the garage door open and runs to his apartment door.

He fumbles a little to unlock the door quickly, but manages to pry it open eventually. He sprints into his room with his helmet still on which makes him bump into the door frame a little. He finds his camera and sprints back out. Keith finally removes his helmet to better look at the camera. He deems it charged enough to film.

He almost slams the door shut behind him as he quickly makes his way back down the apartment stairs and to the garage. He’s out of breath when he presses record and starts talking to the camera, “Hey guys, I, uh, I know it’s been a while and I haven’t uploaded on Tuesday like I was meant to. I was busy prepping for finals,” Keith stops to regain his breath, “So, yeah. But I’m back now. I just came back from my last final, so now I can dedicate my vacation to make videos for you guys.”

He turns the camera so that his motorbike is behind him, “Today, I’m just gonna be modifying and maintaining my bike here. Usually Shiro helps me with that, but he’s still at school right now.” He starts to walk over to his bike which lies resting on the garage floor from his haste.

“What I usually do is check for things like the tire pressure, changing the oil, and some basic cleaning. I’m not much of a mechanic, though,” he laughs nervously, “I usually go by the manual that _Shiro_ dug from the trash. Though I _was_ the one who threw it in the trash.”

Keith puts the camera down on the ground and angles it with some random junk so it can film him working on his bike. He grabs a hair tie from his wrist and ties his hair back, “Ok, let’s get to work.” He spends the remainder of the afternoon trying to decipher the dirty manual while talking about his first time riding a motorcycle. He talked about how he liked motorcycles for the way he feels like he’s flying on one.

Keith is so immersed into his passion for his motorcycle that he doesn’t hear Shiro’s car pull up into its parking space. Nor does he hear Shiro step into the garage for a few moments and then leave.

 

 

“Pizza for dinner?” Keith asks. He certainly didn’t expect Shiro to come home with a warm box of pizza along with two sides of chicken wings. Keith feels his stomach growl.

“Yeah. I thought of bringing home some to celebrate the end of your finals, _and_ for reaching a youtube milestone.” Keith lifts an eyebrow at that, “Allura’s been checking out your channel and she just texted me saying that you’ve just reached a thousand subscribers!”

The shock and elation of Keith’s face makes Shiro laugh. Keith _sprints_ to his room, towards his laptop sitting on his desk. He opens it and goes to his youtube channel. It loads (too long for Keith’s liking) and displays his channel home page along with over a hundred unopened notifications displayed in the corner. Keith’s heart beats hard in his chest from either running or his disbelief at the number.

One thousand and five subscribers.

And Keith has yet to upload his motorbike video. Maybe he should make a thank you video instead? He could upload the motorbike one later. Ah, but is one thousand really that big of a deal though? Some people make milestone videos at a million. No, a thousand _is_ a lot. It’s an overwhelming amount of people that decided that they want to see more of Keith in their subscriptions.

Keith starts to open his notifications and scroll right through all the comments people have left when Shiro knocks on his door frame, “Hey. Pizza’s getting cold. You can look at it later.” Torn, Keith turns away from his laptop and back into the hallway to the kitchen. As Keith washes his hands, Shiro begins to open the pizza box and one of the boxes of chicken wings, “I got you spicy buffalo wings.”

Keith smiles, “Thanks, for everything.” He takes a seat and begins to devour his wings first, getting the buffalo sauce all over his fingers.

Shiro sighs, “I still don’t understand how you’re able to eat such spicy food.”

“You jusht don’t have a high enop shpishe toleransh.” Keith says while eating his chicken. Shiro sighs again.

 

 

Keith is thankful that there are no dishes to clean tonight. He gets to go right back to checking his notifications. He’ll probably be reading comments all night since there’s so many. He can film his thank you video tomorrow.

He scrolls through the comments and notices that they are mostly from the makeover video. Some of the comments say things like, “ _OMG UR SO CUTE, THE KISS AT THE END TOTALLY KILLED ME”,_ “ _I cant be the only one who thinks this guy is hot right_?”, and an amusing, “ _damn son you totally got me with that kiss and im a guy btw”._ The list goes on about how attractive Keith looked. There was even one commenter gushing about wanting to marry him, which flustered Keith a lot.

But another thing he’s noticed is the amount of comments congratulating him on getting Allura in his video. Based on a particular comment, “ _how did this guy get allura to star on his video? He doesn’t even do makeup or anything_ ”, Keith has an idea that maybe Allura is kinda famous on youtube as well. He’ll have to ask her about that later.

Keith spends the next couple of hours just scrolling through comments. They are set in order from most recent, so Keith wants to make sure he’s read the older one too, even if the older ones are just a mini contest for who’s first.

It’s past 11PM when it happens. Keith sees another comment about his attractiveness. He was about to brush it off and keep going when the commenter’s icon makes him scroll back up. He stares at the icon and then the username.

_“Lancelot.”_

There’s just no way, Keith thinks. He clicks on the username, expecting it to be some imposter user. But no, it leads directly to Lance’s official youtube home page. Keith checks the subscribe button to be sure and he _is_ subscribed.

Keith wants to scream. So, he grabs a pillow and screams a muffled “Oh my god!!” into it as he kicks his feet in excitement. He did it. He got Lance to notice him. He goes back to his laptop and clicks back to the comment.

_“Wow, you really turned out to be a real pretty boy. Not like you weren’t a pretty boy before ;)”_

His heart beats fast and his palm feel a bit sweaty. He wants to scream again. He lies back in his bed this time, lies on his stomach, and screams into his pillow again.

 

 

“Okay, okay, let’s try this again.” Keith pumps himself up, “Hey, guys. Sorry I didn’t upload for a while like I was supposed to. I got stuck with taking care of finals. But I’m free to do whatever for summer vacation.” He smiles. God, he feels nervous. What if Lance watched his other videos. He checked and he didn’t seem to leave any other comments. What if Keith is overthinking this and Lance only watched the video because Allura was in it? No, he left a comment about _Keith_ for christ’s sake.

Keith shakes his head, “Anyway, I’m making this kind of vlog video as a thank you for helping me reach _a thousand_ subscribers in just three weeks! You guys helped me with your views and I thank you for that.” He pauses and makes a face, “Ugh, that was a bit, ugh.”

He lifts the camera again, “Anyway, I’m making this short vlog to thank you guys for helping me reach a thousand subscribers. It really means a lot to me.”

He thinks for a moment before continuing, “You guys give me purpose. Like, I’m generally not a creative person. But ever since I started doing youtube, I start getting all these ideas I could do. They might not be the most popular as my friends have been sort of giving me this popularity.” He sighs. Of course, had it not been for Allura, Keith might not have gained this much attention. But he’s not about to let this new-found stardom go to waste.

“But, I’ll continue to make videos that I would like to watch. If other people happen to like it, then I’m glad.” He smiles at the camera, at his audience that isn’t physically there but feels like they’re watching now that he looks at the lens, “So, as always, I’ll see you guys in the next video.” Keith waves a little and his grin spreads wider.

As soon as he turns off the recording, he gets right to uploading the video. His leg shakes nervously as he does so. What if Lance watches this video? Oh god, he wasn’t that corny, was he? He cuts the video down to under a minute and begins uploading it.

 

 

Late that afternoon, Lance is lounging in his living room couch with a lemonade in hand. He’s on his laptop, overlooking the comments on today’s two video uploads. Everyone seems to want his Sims 4 playthrough to keep going, but Lance doesn’t know what to do next.

He glides his mouse over the youtube search bar and starts typing. After he hits enter, he looks at his results and clicks on a link, bringing him to a channel home page.

“KeithKogane” seemed to have uploaded a new video a few minutes ago. Titled, “Thank you,” Lance can already guess that it must be a milestone video for just hitting a thousand subscribers. Lance watches the short video just out of curiosity, nothing more, really. By the end of it, Lance thinks to himself that he doesn’t really like going through the trouble of typing in the guy’s username just to see if he uploaded anything. It’s been a habit of his since yesterday to check practically every hour.

Nodding to himself, Lance clicks on the subscribe button.


	7. Keith Kogane: Pop Punk Sensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith isn't done freaking out over Lance finally noticing him. He also has a moment where he shows a side of himself he hasn't shown to anyone in a while. And Shiro records it.

Keith rolls back and forth on his bed. He finds it hard to keep still. He sits up suddenly to lying on his stomach, knees bent up with his feet in the air to look at his laptop. He left Lance’s comment on display for the last two hours now and Keith still can’t get over it. He called him a _pretty boy_. He covers his face and in an attempt to muffle his scream as he swings his feet back and forth like a teenage girl thinking about her high school crush.

He pulls up his Thank You video to distract himself. The responses he’s gotten were very positive to say the least. Keith can’t believe people are excited about future content from the channel. He was worried about reaching a stalemate once he got Lance to notice him, but Keith finds he rather enjoys thinking of video ideas for his channel. Several comments on that Thank You video had said something along the lines of, “ _if you only did vlog-types of videos, id still watch_.”

It left Keith wondering about the theme of his channel. Originally, he meant for it to be about conspiracy theories and a general place to discuss local cryptids. He even thought about filming in a nearby forest to “go cryptid searching.” But the nearest forest isn’t for miles. Plus, there isn’t a recorded cryptid creature in the area Keith lives in anyway. There is, however, a famous haunted house used as a tourist attraction just a few towns over. Though the most Keith could do is just record during the tour. Did they even allow cameras?

Or maybe he could just vlog things as they happen. That’s what some youtubers do and somehow they get millions of views. He hasn’t uploaded the motorcycle video yet, so that could be his focus. He recently heard of this “balloon roulette” challenge that he could do with Shiro and maybe Allura. Keith sighs happily to himself. Oh, the ideas that could arise!

 

 

The week passes by rather slowly. On Saturday morning, Keith uploaded his motorbike maintenance video and received _a lot_ more attention than he was expecting. It would later become his third most popular video.

After he uploaded it, Keith waits for it to gain views by going through his own youtube subscriptions. He sees Lance’s weekend vlog, titled “Check Out These Guns” with that flexing arm emoji at the corners of the thumbnail. It must be a workout video. It’s been a while since Lance went to a gym last. Or maybe he has been going but just hasn’t mentioned it in his vlogs? Nah, Keith thinks, Lance is the type of person to talk about his physique every chance he gets. He clicks on the video and gets comfortable on the couch to watch.

The video starts with Lance sitting in his living room, facing the camera, “Hey everyone! You can probably already tell what this vlog will be about if you read the title. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, I, the ever so handsome Lancelot, will be heading back to the gym in what feels like, I don’t know, a month?” Lance laughs nervously as he rubs at the back of his neck, “To be honest, I probably wasn’t going to the gym if I hadn’t got some outside inspiration to go back. Anyway! I’ll cut to when I’m at the gym.” Lance clicks his tongue as he finger-guns at the camera.

The video cuts to Lance entering the gym building, “Hopefully the gym instructors don’t give me shit for not showing up in a while. They practically know me here.” But as soon as he enters, someone shouts “McClain!” and Lance sighs.

It cuts again to Lance lifting weights, one dumbbell in each hand. He huffs as he says, “You know, I forgot why I even stopped coming here. Working out just feels so great.” It then jump-cuts to Lance on a bench, lying on his side, whining in agony.

Someone must be holding the camera as the camera approaches Lance’s limp form. “You doing okay, buddy?” says the voice behind the camera. Lance only whines again. An arm comes into the shot to pet Lance’s arm, “Hey, you worked hard, man. Don’t push yourself, okay?” A water bottle is handed to Lance and it must be cold because Lance just placed the water bottle against different parts of his must-be-sore body. Keith laughs.

The video continues with Lance walking and talking on the treadmill. He mainly talks about his week and how he’s been like usual. But throughout most of it, he talks about his latest “youtube inspiration.” He goes on saying, “Like, I know I’ve been on here for a while and I’ve made my mark on youtube. But like, I was thinking about my reasons for still being here, you know? Like, do I wanna make an impact on something, or create something big, or… I don’t know.”

Lance grabs a towel from off screen and wipes his sweat with it. He then flexes his arm to the camera. “Oh, look at me, I’m all muscly. I bet I can bench press you,” he says with a slight mocking tone to his voice.

The video ends with Lance in his parked car. The sun seems to be setting as it gives a warm colored lighting effect on Lance’s face. He spins his car keys around his finger, then proceeds to toss it into the air and catches it. He makes an are-you-impressed kind of face at the camera. “Anyway, I hope you guys really like this video. And as always, I’ll see you in the next video.”

Keith clicks away from the video, back to his own to see if there’s anything new. There isn’t anything that Keith hasn’t seen already but suddenly he gets five notifications from the gray bell in the corner. It rises to ten, then fifteen, then thirty-five. Just what is going on?

Keith clicks on the bell icon to and drops down a list of comments to his workout video. Why was that getting attention now all of a sudden? He begins to read the comments. They mostly say the usual “ _shiro’s so hot_ ” and “ _youre so cute_ ”, generally about how attractive two sweaty guys are. But then he sees a comment that makes Keith’s heart stop. It reads, “ _who else came here bcuz of lancelot?_ ”

There’s just no way. Maybe his video appeared in the featured list alongside Lance’s? That must be it. Keith clicks back to the video and scrolls down to look at the featured videos list. When it’s not there, Keith suspects that maybe someone left a comment on Lance’s video about his own workout video. Ah, but there’s so many comments to go through.

As a last resort, Keith expands the description box. He skims through it until he finds it. There’s a link to a video with text written before it that reads: “ _This is what inspired me to work out again_.” He clicks on the link to be sure and as expected, it leads directly to his own workout video. Keith looks up from his laptop, a far off look in his eyes. Is it possible to die happy? Somehow, Lance saw that video and gained some inspiration from watching Keith getting all sweaty. Keith lays back for a moment on the couch.

But Keith is unable to lie down anymore as he sits back up. Oh god, what other videos of his has Lance seen? Did he like anyone of them? Did he think he was weird from all those conspiracy talks he’s done? Keith quickly goes back to Lance’s channel home page and clicks on “Playlists”. He clicks on the “Liked Videos” playlist from the large selection of other playlists. Keith doesn’t need to scroll down that far to find his workout video _and_ his Thank You video. Keith almost forgets to breathe. Lance _liked_ two of his videos. _Lance actually took the time to look at Keith’s other videos._

Keith lies back down again. He thinks about how real this all is. He pinches his cheek to make sure it isn’t a dream.

 

 

Lance was just browsing his Twitter feed when his phone notifies him of a new youtube upload. He secretly hopes it’s from that mullet guy Keith. He lets out an excited gasp when it is. The video is called, “Working on My Motorbike” and the thumbnail shows a picture of a red motorcycle. He taps onto the video and it begins to play.

Keith is out of breath as he begins talking, “Hey guys, I, uh, I know it’s been a while…”

As Lance watches the video, he’s not really paying attention to what Keith is saying about his motorcycle, but the way he is talking. It seemed rushed at first, like he was in a hurry to start talking about it. But soon, he seems to calm down and starts to get more passionate as he continues to talk.

Lance also can’t help but get _really_ interested in watching the video after Keith ties his hair back. He also notices the black fingerless gloves he’s wearing. What is this guy’s style anyway? Does he shop at Hot Topic or something? Lance thinks back to when he saw him at the mall. He probably does.

After he finishes the video, he checks if there are any comments. Since it was just uploaded, there’s probably not going to be many. His suspicions were confirmed when he sees a zero next to the word “Comments.” Lance debates whether or not he should leave a comment himself. But what should he say? He doesn’t know much about motorcycles. Should he go for the more flirtatious route? Keith didn’t exactly reply to his first comment.

So, Lance begins typing, “ _do you let anybody ride ur motorcycle ;)_ ” but then deletes it. The innuendo’s to strong. He tries again, “ _would u mind giving me a ride~_ ”. He deletes that one as well. Lance groans in frustration. He doesn’t even know if the guy swung that way.

Finally, he settles for, “ _you should tie your hair up more often, it suits you :)_ ”. He presses send, and receives an error on his phone.

 

 

Later that afternoon, Shiro shakes Keith awake from his nap on the couch. Keith groans as he wakes, “Ugh, Shiro. What is it?” He wipes at the dry spit across his cheek.

“We’re going to meet up with Allura soon. You didn’t forget, did you?” says Shiro. He places a hand on his hip as he waits for Keith to come to his senses.

“Oh yeah, Allura,” says Keith, rather groggily. He stretches and says, “I’ll go get ready then.” He wobbles a little as he stands and heads to his room.

After Keith gets dressed, they head to Shiro’s car and pull out of their apartment parking lot. Rather than sit in silence, Shiro decides to turn on the car radio. It’s set to a station that mainly plays pop/punk music from when Keith last fiddled with the station setting. Shiro doesn’t change it, though. Not out of respect for his brother’s taste or anything, he just knows that Keith will change it back if he tries to switch over to another station.

It reminds Shiro of something, so he asks Keith, “Hey, Keith. Have you ever considered singing in one of your videos?”

Keith lifts an eyebrow, “Singing? What, why?”

Shiro hums, “Remember back when you were in that ba-”

“Shiro, no.” Keith interrupts him, “I thought we agreed to let that go.”

Shiro’s smile is smug as he says, “But you gotta admit, you were a pretty good singer.” A familiar song begins to play, the instrumental fading in and out on either side of the car’s speakers. Shiro nudges Keith, “Hey, didn’t you used to love this song? Do you remember the words?” Keith doesn’t say anything as he faces away from Shiro.

With a sigh, Shiro decides to drop the subject. The song continues to play:

 

_Do you know what’s worth fighting for_

_When it’s not worth dying for?_

_Does it take your breath away_

_And you feel yourself suffocating_

Shiro didn’t expect it when Keith started to sing along to the next part of the verse, quietly at first.

 

_Does the pain weigh out the pride?_

_And you look for a place to hide_

_Did someone break your heart inside_

_You’re in ruins_

Keith really starts to get into it once the chorus begins to play.

 

_One, 21 Guns_

_Lay down your arms_

_Give up the fight_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Throw up your arms into the sky_

_You and I…_

Throughout the next verse, Shiro fumbles to get his phone out. Fortunately, he’s at a red light so he can focus on finding it. Once he has it out, he starts recording Keith with it. He’s probably going to get a ticket for having his phone out in his hand while driving, but it’s worth it, he thinks. Keith continues to sing.

 

_Your faith walks on broken glass_

_And the hangover doesn’t pass_

_Nothing’s ever built to last_

_You’re in ruins_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Lay down your arms_

_Give up the fight_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Throw up your arms into the sky_

_You and I…_

Keith bobs his head to the music as he continues to sing along. The song makes it to the bridge and Shiro is looking frantically between getting a good recording of Keith and trying to drive at the same time. Keith’s in his own little world, and hasn’t noticed Shiro recording him yet.

 

_When it’s time to live and let die_

_And you can’t get another try_

_Something inside this heart has died_

_You’re in ruins_

Keith lifts his head up slowly, preparing for the drop, and for his best singing performance in the car…

 

**_One,_ ** _21 Guns_

_Lay down your arms_

_Give up the fight_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Throw up your arms into the sky_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Lay down your arms_

_Give up the fight_

_One, 21 Guns_

_Throw up your arms into the sky_

_You and I_

The song fades out. Keith takes a second to breathe. He glances at Shiro and finally sees his phone recording him. He shouts so loud Shiro almost knocks himself over the steering wheel, “Shiro! What the hell!”

 

 

They make it to the juice shop without further incident. The radio is off now so that Keith can play back the video Shiro recorded. He had hoped that the song itself would drown out his singing, but he was singing pretty loud throughout most of it. Embarrassed, Keith tosses Shiro’s phone back to him and covers his face with his hands.

Shiro finds a parking spot, parks the car, and proceeds to unbuckle his seatbelt. He turns to Keith, places a hand on his shoulder and says, softly, “I’m going to upload that.”

Keith lifts his face out of his hands to narrow his eyes at his brother, “You wouldn’t dare.” Shiro just laughs and steps out of the car. Keith fumbles as he tries to unbuckle his own seatbelt to chase after Shiro.

 

 

“You want to ask me something?” questions Allura.

Keith nods his head as he sips his orange blend smoothie. “Yeah, it’s about the makeover video we made together. I got some comments congratulating me on having you on my channel. But what does that mean?”

Allura sighs dejectedly. She doesn’t make eye contact with Keith as she says, “I’ve had many people come up to me, inviting me to join them on some youtube collab or something like that because I was so popular on my Instagram.”

She sighs again, “And I’ve said no to every invitation. I even said no to one of my own friends. All because I was nervous and uncomfortable about doing anything on video. I guess you could say I was a bit camera shy.” She laughs nervously.

“But what about your Instagram?”

“It’s different on there. It’s just a bunch of photos that I’ve taken myself, so I have control over it. If I mess up a photo, I can just take another. But a video is just not the same.” She shakes her head.

After a moment of silence, Shiro speaks up, “And I, uh, have a question for you, too.” Allura perks up at Shiro’s voice. “I, uh, was sorta hoping, well wondering if you could maybe – I mean only if you want to, uh-”

“Oh, my god, Shiro,” Keith interrupts. Shiro frowns at Keith but there is a hint of a blush on his face.

Allura smiles at Shiro, “Do you, perhaps, want to talk some more later?”

Shiro just stares at her, wide eyed, but recovers quickly, “Yeah, yeah! That would be great.”

“Great! We should text each other for when we should meet up next time.” Allura pulls up her phone to exchange phone numbers.

After they do, Shiro still has his phone out. Oh no, Keith thinks, he better not do what I think he’s about to do.

“Hey Allura, did you know Keith can-” Shiro was ready for Keith to fling himself onto him. He easily keeps his phone out of Keith’s reach.

Keith grumbles to himself as Shiro successfully handed his phone to Allura, the video ready to play on the phone screen. After watching it, Allura’s eyes are sparkling as she faces Keith, “Keith, oh my! I didn’t know you could sing like that! Why don’t you upload this to your channel!”

Keith has his hands on his face again. “It’s kinda embarrassing, though.” He sighs and takes a pouty sip of his smoothie.

Allura grabs Keith’s hand, a pleading look in her eye, “You _have_ to upload that video. You have this whole other side of you that you should show to others.” When Keith doesn’t respond, Allura leans in closer over the table, nearly bumping her smoothie. “Please, I beg of you.”

Keith tries to scoot back in his seat, “I, I don’t know.”

“Your viewers would appreciate it~” Allura sing-songs.

Keith sighs, “I’ll think about it.” Allura squeals in delight and Shiro claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did y'all know that Steven Yeun (Keith's VA) can sing??  
> Also, I don't know that many punk songs so I just used my favorite which is 21 Guns by Green Day.


	8. Twitter DM's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith decides to upload that video of him singing. It receives positive attention and a private message on his twitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me longer to write as I was debating how I was going to get these two to meet. Anyway, I hope y'all like this chapter!

Keith is nervous. He uploaded the singing video over an hour ago and purposely hasn’t checked any of the notifications he’s received. He checks the comments on his other videos manually in order to avoid looking at them. His nervousness escalates when he finds another comment by Lance on his motorcycle video.

“ _you should tie your hair up more often, it suits you :)_ ”.

Oh god, does that mean he’s watching all of his videos? That’s what the comment sort of implies anyway. Did he subscribe to him? Was there an easy way to check? Keith clicks to his channel home page and clicks on “Subscribers”. He was about to scroll down when he sees the notice: “Only subscribers who share their subscriptions publicly are shown.”

That’s right. Lance might not share his subscriptions publicly. He would have to check. Keith goes to Lance’s channel and clicks under “Channels” where his subscriptions would be. He’s surprised to see the subscriptions list to be there.

Keith didn’t have to click on anything else as he sees his username and icon as the most recent channel Lance is subscribed to. He begins to laugh to himself, unable to believe it. Tears begin to fill his eyes but he blinks them away.

He gets up from his comfortable spot on his bed and starts pacing around his room, unable to keep still. He then goes to his desk and finds that sticky note. He finds a pen and crosses out the words written on it. He writes something underneath it, and his heart won’t stop beating so hard in his chest as he writes. Finally, when he’s done, he sticks it back onto his desk. The new note reads:

_~~Get Lance to notice you~~ _

_Talk to Lance_

Lance is sitting in his Pidge’s living room as he plays the video of Keith singing for the eighth time. Lance knew he had a nice voice, but the fact that Keith could sing made his heart race a little bit. If only he’d brought his earbuds to listen to his voice better.

Pidge looks up from her laptop, “How many times are you going to keep playing that video?”

Lance sits upright, he forgot that Pidge was even in the room. “Oh, uh. Sorry. There’s just – there’s something about this guy, you know. It’s like the universe is trying to tell me something when one moment I walk past him, and the next I discover he has a youtube channel.”

Pidge adjusts her glasses, “Why don’t you send him a message? Talk to him or something.”

Lance sighs, “I don’t know, Pidge. If he had a twitter account I’d talk to him there. Or a snapchat, that’d be even better.” He stares at his phone with the video paused at Keith with his eyes closed, completely immersed into his own singing. He sighs again.

They spend the next couple of minutes talking about Pidge’s latest coding project. It served as a nice distraction for Lance until his phone buzzes in his hand. It’s another youtube notification. Lance wonders what it could be when he opens the youtube app.

Lance’s spirit practically leaves his body as he sees it’s another upload from Keith. He shushes Pidge, “Sorry, I, uh gotta take this.” He makes to get up but realizes he has nowhere private to go.

Pidge just gives him a knowing smile, “How about I leave you to your… thing.” She tucks her laptop under her arm and heads to her room. After Lance hears the soft click of the door closing, he settles back down and selects the video to play.

The video fades into Keith in what appears to be his bedroom. He seems anxious from the way he’s scratching at the back of his head and not being able to settle on whether to stand up or sit on his bed. He waves to the camera a bit awkwardly, “Uh, hey guys. This might seem a bit sudden since I usually upload one video for every scheduled day.”

Keith finally sits down on the mattress, “I just realized something and I couldn’t wait for Thursday to say it. So, I uh, I haven’t seen any of your responses to today’s video and I’m sure some of you have question. So, I thought, a way for me to talk to you guys and answer those questions was for me to set up a twitter account.”

Lance squeaks. Is the universe messing with him? Here he was, thinking about maybe talking to the guy and now suddenly, he announces his social media contacts? Maybe he should start asking for a date with Allura…

The video continues with Keith saying, “Uh, I mean, I’ve had this twitter account for a while, I’ve just never used it, except to follow people on there. So, I’ll just leave a link to that in the description and I’ll add it to the channel info too.” After a short pause, Keith says, “So, that’s all I wanted to say. So, uh, later.” He waves and the video ends.

Lance scrolls down to the description box and selects the twitter account link. And sure enough, it leads to an empty twitter account save for a single tweet that says, “ _Hi, this is KeithKogane. You can talk to me and send me your questions here._ ” But the main thing Lance notices is the little notice next to the twitter name that says, “ _Follows you_.”

 

 

What Keith didn’t expect when he left notifications on for twitter was the onslaught of comments and questions from his viewers. He quickly turns it off, better to give him some peace. He had faced the comments people left on his singing video after he uploaded his announcement. A lot of them complimented his singing ability. One that made Keith chuckle to himself said, “ _wow ur cute AND you can sing!! Ur like a double threat_.”

Now on twitter, he responds to and answers as many comments and questions as he can. Fortunately, there’s only a small handful of about thirty. But Keith is prepared for many more to come later.

 

 

Lance just stares at his soon-to-be-sent private message to Keith. He isn’t too sure about what to say. Should he start off with a nice compliment? Should he play it safe and just give a self-introduction? Even if he does come up with something to say, will it send properly instead of facing an error three times like when he did the last time he left a comment?

He sighs to himself. Just, leave a message! He screams at himself internally. He’s knows he’s making this harder than it’s supposed to be, but he really doesn’t want to come off as pretentious or something to the guy just because he follows him.

After taking a deep breath, Lance starts typing. He’ll start with a question that he’s been wondering about for a while. After reading it over in case of any mistakes, he hits send. Now Lance must do his least favorite thing in the world. Wait.

 

 

Keith’s heart is beating hard in his chest. He was in the middle of replying to someone when the twitter app notified him of a direct message. He opened it, thinking it was maybe just someone with a private question until he remembered at the last moment that he only allowed twitter accounts he follows to message him. And he only follows one person.

The message reads: “ _Hey, I’m Lance. I was wondering how you got my friend Allura to be in your video_.”

Keith’s eyes are wide as he just stares at his phone screen. He was thinking about what to message back when he sees that Lance is typing. Oh god, Lance is talking to him _already_. And Keith hasn’t even done anything. No, talking should be a two-way thing, thinks Keith. He shakes his head and glances back at his phone just in time to see the next message pop up.

“ _I mean, she’s been invited to appear on other people’s videos and she’s turned down every single one. I was just wondering how you managed to get her in YOUR video._ ”

Keith just stares at the messages. Of course, Allura would be friends with Lance. Popular people on the internet tended to flock together, don’t they? Keith thinks for a good minute on how to respond. He should be honest, he decides. He starts typing, “ _Allura is a friend of mine too. She actually came up to me to be in one of my videos._ ” He shakily presses send.

Keith puts his phone aside and lies back on his bed. He tries his best to calm his beating heart but to no avail.

 

 

“ _Allura is a friend of mine too. She actually came up to me to be in one of my videos._ ”

Lance already had a feeling the two were close in some way. But Keith’s answer did clear up any suspicions. It was in Allura’s nature to help her friends.

Now, Lance could’ve ended the conversation there by saying something like “ _Okay, thanks,_ ” or maybe not even respond. But Lance is hooked on this guy. More so from the fact that he saw him in person at the mall. Which means he ought to live nearby. Or maybe he’s on vacation from somewhere?

Lance starts pacing across the living room in time for Pidge back from her room. She eyes him as she heads to the kitchen, but doesn’t say a word.

Finally, Lance picks up his phone and starts typing away another question that’s been on his mind.

 

 

Keith sits back up when he feels he’s recovered enough, the beating of his heart calming a little. He grabs his phone to see if Lance had responded. He sees Lance’s message.

“ _I saw your singing video. Where did you learn to sing like that? You’re really good._ ”

He almost wants to laugh, out of embarrassment or glee, he doesn’t know. Lance had _seen_ that singing video. His vision blurs as he types out his response, tears in his eyes and smile stuck on his face that it’s starting to feel painful.

He tries to compose himself in order to finish writing out his response, “ _Thank you. I was in a band as the lead singer in high school for about two years._ ”

He hits send before he got the chance to read over it for any errors. Fortunately, there is none. Keith just stares at the few messages they exchanged when he sees Lance is typing.

Finally, a new message appears that says, “ _You were in a rock band? That’s really cool!_ ”

Keith laughs. He goes to correct Lance that it was a punk band but decides against it. He already thought he was cool, better not ruin it.

 

 

Lance has a wide grin on his face as he looks at the private messages. He doesn’t notice Pidge sitting next to him, peeking at the messages on his phone. When she does speak, it makes Lance jump.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you looked like you were talking to a girl.” She adjusts her glasses as Lance takes a moment to recover, “Hey, it’s getting dark out. Shouldn’t you be heading home soon?”

Lance glances around the room and notices the orange tinted sunlight stretching across the room from the windows. He mutters an “Oh” and gets up to stretch his limbs. “Yeah, I’ll get going. See ya, Pidge.”

He exits the apartment and finds his car parked in its visitor spot. As he sits in his car, Lance sends one final message before starting the car.

“ _You seem like a cool dude. Do you live in the Glendale area? If you do, we should collab and stuff._ ”

 

 

Keith receives Lance’s next message and is about to answer when Shiro comes knocking against his door frame, “Hey Keith. Dinner’s ready.”

Keith mumbles a “Yeah I’ll be there in a minute,” but Shiro doesn’t leave.

He says, “And I want you to do the dishes tonight this time.” Keith groans.

“Fine, I’ll do them,” Keith gets up from his seat on the bed and heads to the kitchen with Shiro.

Shiro doesn’t miss the smile that’s playing on his brother’s lips. He teases, “And what’s got you all smiling?” That earns him a playful shove.

“Nothing that concerns you,” mumbles Keith. “That reminds me, how are things with Allura? Like, are you guys steady yet or what?” Keith gets a shove back. “What? It’s been a couple of days. When are you going to call her?”

Shiro sighs, “Probably this coming weekend. I’ve gotten pretty busy with preparing my teaching plans for summer school.”

He notices Keith’s phone in his hand. He lift a brow, “What did I say about bringing your phone to the table?”

Keith sheepishly looks away, “I’m talking to someone right now.”

“And it can wait. But first, you got to eat first.”

Keith reluctantly leaves his phone back in his room. Throughout dinner, Keith is on edge. He keeps thinking about Lance’s last message. Collabing together? He lived on the outskirts of Glendale sure, but collabing? With Lance? What would they even do? Keith certainly hasn’t done much, except for a Q & A video. Maybe a challenge?

Keith finishes his dinner and is about to sprint back to his room when Shiro clears his throat. He nods his head towards the kitchen sink, which is full of dirty dishes. With a groan, Keith lurks back into the kitchen and gets started.

 

 

Lance is sitting in his own room now. He checks his private messages for the fourth time that night and Keith still hasn’t responded. Did he go too far? They barely exchanged a few words and already he’s talking about working together.

Lance tosses and turns on his bed, unable to relax. The wait for Keith’s reply is killing him. Maybe he got busy? Something turned up? He sighs. He goes to his desk computer and turns it on. Maybe some gaming will help him take his mind off it.

As soon as he plants his butt on the chair, his phone lights up with a notification. Lance jumps back onto the bed. Man is he glad he turned DM notifications on. He quickly opens his phone and reads Keith’s message.

“ _Sure, I’d love to collab with you. I live near Glendale btw._ ”

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. So Keith _does_ live nearby. Lance suspected as much but just had to be sure. He quickly types something out and hits send.

“ _Okay! We should probably meet up (through Allura, of course) and talk for a bit before we decide on anything. I’ll ask her to arrange a time and place for us to meet._ ”

Oh god, Lance hoped he didn’t appear so over eager to meet the guy. He scrolls through the previous messages and sighs. How did a couple of questions lead up to a possible collab with Keith? Don’t get him wrong though, there’s nothing wrong with doing it with the guy. Lance also had thoughts of just meeting him, even if was through Allura. If he really was friends with her as he said, then it was only a matter of time before they would see each other.

Lance lies back on his bed. Of course they wouldn’t just collaborate on something right off the bat. Lance would like to get to know Keith first. If he was a great guy, they might even become friends. Lance thinks about what kind of person Keith would be. Would he be as pretty in person? It’s been so long since he’s seen him from the mall that his memory of how he looked that day is starting to fade.

His phone lights up again. Lance opens it again and reads Keith’s reply.

“ _I look forward to seeing you, man._ ”

A smile spreads across Lance’s face. He hugs his phone tightly to his chest. His heart beating wildly.


	9. I don't dance, I mean... sing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally meet face to face!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slight warning about past homophobia and use of the F word in this chapter.

Keith looks at his last sent message. “ _I look forward to seeing you, man._ ” He worries his lip. Was that too casual? As he reads it again he notices as it doesn’t quite match up to Lance’s energy in _his_ messages. Keith hopes Lance doesn’t take it as him not being interested.

He sets his phone aside on the dinner table and eats his cereal robotically. Ever since the twitter exchange, Keith has been eagerly waiting for a message from Allura. He had to give her his number through Shiro in order for her to contact him. It’s only been a few days and Keith is already restless about meeting Lance already. Maybe he was busy with youtube work and needed to clear up his schedule to meet up.

He goes to put his cereal bowl in the sink when his phone vibrates. Keith dashes to his phone on the table and feels disappointed when it’s only a message from Shiro. Reluctantly, he opens the message, “ _It seems that workout video has reached the school._ ”

Keith begins to panic. He frantically types, “ _That’s not gonna affect your job, is it?!_ ” After sending that message, he sees Shiro typing.

After a few seconds, he responds, “ _I don’t think so. The other teachers thought it was funny. Plus, I was mainly in the background throughout most of the video and nothing really controversial happened. So don’t worry about it._ ”

Keith exhales. Of course, while Shiro was in the video he wasn’t exactly the center of attention. Keith takes his phone with him as he heads back to his room. He goes to turn on a nearby fan as the heat is starting to settle into his room. He quickly heads to the bathroom to grab a hair tie. As he ties his hair back, he glances at his reflection in the mirror. He thinks back to one of Lance’s comments.

_You should tie your hair up more often, it suits you._

Keith begins to blush and turns away from his reflection. When the heat in his face doesn’t go away, he blames the summer heat.

 

 

Lance is sitting in his air conditioned living room while scrolling through his twitter feed on his phone. He’s mainly looking through his tag _#GiveLanceAChallenge_ for some inspiration. There are mentions of taking ice baths, eating a brand of flavored jelly beans, using electric shock collars, to chapstick. Wait, chapstick? Lance never heard of a “chapstick challenge.”

He does a quick google search. After looking through the results, Lance concludes that it’s a semi-old challenge from a few years ago. Apparently, it requires at least two people to do the challenge as it includes kissing to guess what flavor of chapstick one person is wearing.

Lance’s mind wanders to any possible partners he could have for the challenge. He would _love_ to kiss Allura, but he doubts she’d want to even participate. Pidge is definitely out of the question. Hunk… maybe, if he was up for it. Then Lance thinks about Keith. They _are_ planning to collab together. Lance wonders how soft those lips would feel. He unconsciously feels his own as he replays the end of the makeover video in his head at the part where Keith kissed the camera. Lance lies down on his couch as he thinks about how those lips would feel against his own. About how they would feel elsewhere on his bo-

Lance sits right back up and proceeds to shake his head vigorously. He can’t be having these thoughts! He barely talks to the guy and already he’s having fantasies. Feeling a lot warmer than he was a minute ago, Lance goes to his AC and cranks it up to its maximum cooling capacity.

 

 

It’s not until Wednesday that Allura sends a message to Keith at around 6AM. Of course, Keith had slept in and didn’t read the message until he woke up at around ten. He reaches for his phone next to his pillow and reads Allura’s message, “ _Sorry to message you so early, but I was able to confirm with Lance that tomorrow would be an ideal time for you two to meet. Is 2PM good for you?_ ”

Keith quickly types out his response, “ _Yeah, 2 is great. But where?_ ” While he waits for a reply, Keith decides to climb out of bed and start eating breakfast. He heads to the bathroom to quickly brush his teeth and heads to the kitchen.

He hasn’t even poured milk into his cereal bowl yet when his phone vibrates. That was fast. Keith grabs his phone and sees that Allura has replied, “ _Great! I had arranged for Lance to pick you up from your apartment. He’ll most likely take you to his apartment._ ”

Keith’s palms begin to feel sweaty. Lance is coming to _his_ apartment. And is probably going to take him to where _he lives_. He vaguely registers Allura’s next message, “ _I had asked Shiro for your apartment address so I could give it to Lance. He was very adamant about picking you up from your home._ ”

For the remainder of breakfast, Keith stares blankly at his cereal. He was going to meet Lance, face-to-face. The reality of it sets in and Keith can’t help but cry a little. He thinks about how in the last month he went from a nobody to Lance to someone that he eagerly wants to meet. Keith sighs to himself. Now to somehow waste the day away until tomorrow…

 

 

Lance would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. Truth be told, he’s nervous as hell. His nerves got the better of him as he took a clumsy sip of his lemonade, spilling it onto his shirt. He groans in frustration and goes to change into something cleaner. He opts for a loose white tank top and is secretly glad it showcases his slightly toned arms, thankful for past Lance for going to the gym again.

He goes to throw his shirt into the hamper when he notices it’s missing. Lance sighs. Hunk must’ve taken it to the laundromat part of their apartment complex. He goes to Hunk’s room to see if he’s still in there sorting through his own clothes. He catches him just in time as Hunk leaves his room.

“Oh, hey Hunk!” greets Lance, “I got one more for ya.” He slam-dunks his balled-up shirt into the hamper in Hunk’s arms.

Hunk raises a brow, “Wait, weren’t you wearing that just now? What happened to it?” He begins to inspect the ruined shirt.

Lance waves his hand nonchalantly, “I just spilled some lemonade on it and it got all sticky. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Either that or your nervous,” says Hunk with a knowing smile.

“What? Me? Nervous?” Lance scoffs. “I’m not nervous about meeting that guy, what’s-his-name.” He starts to walk away and immediately collides with the wall. Hunk snorts as he holds back a laugh.

Lance scrambles to get up back up, “A-anyway, I’m going over to the guy’s place now.” He grabs his car keys on his way out and slams the door shut.

 

 

Keith is sitting uncomfortably on his couch, impatiently shaking his leg. Lance is supposed to arrive at two and it’s not even 1:30 yet! He contemplates taking a nap but decides against it. He might oversleep and miss Lance. So he opts instead to play a game on his phone. No sooner had he taken his phone out that he hears a knock on the door.

He _flies_ out of his spot on the couch and makes it in front of his door. He looks into the peephole and there, standing in front of his door, is the familiar tan boy. Keith yanks the door open a bit too fast and nearly hits himself in the face. Hopefully Lance won’t notice.

Lance waves at him, a bright smile on his face, “Hey. I’m Lance.” He extends his hand, “And you must be Keith, right?”

Keith takes his hand and gives it a solid shake, “Yeah, that’s me.” Oh god, this is actually happening. Keith hopes his sweaty palms aren’t too noticeable.

When their hands separate, Lance settles both fists on his hips, “We should get going. Are you ready?”

Keith nods enthusiastically, unable to trust his voice. Lance smiles and heads down to the parking lot, “Great! Let’s get going!” Keith grabs the spare key and locks the apartment door. As he makes his way down, he notices Lance’s casual apparel. A white tank top that compliments his skin tone and… booty shorts? He hadn’t noticed when he was trying to maintain eye contact with him but now he thinks he might not be able to survive the car ride with _those legs_. And Lance _did_ shave.

They make it to Lance’s car which, Keith notes, is much nicer than Shiro’s car. Especially when compared to the interior. There’s a _screen_ right above the radio and AC controls. As Keith fastens his seatbelt, he sees Lance fiddling with his phone. “Hold on,” he says, “I’m just gonna put on some tunes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind,” replies Keith.

“Cool,” Keith notices that Lance isn’t even connecting an aux cord anywhere. He figures it must be a Bluetooth system as music starts playing just as Lance sets his phone down. The music begins at a steady rhythm and the singing begins though it’s in a language that Keith vaguely recognizes as Spanish. The only English uttered throughout the song is a repeat of the word “shaky”, or at least, Keith thinks that’s what the singer is saying.

Lance adjusts the volume so that he can speak, “Have you ever heard of reggaeton?” He smiles at Keith. Keith only shakes his head but Lance’s smile still holds, “It’s like latin pop music. Like this song.” Lance starts to move his body to the music, rolling his shoulders to the beat.

Meanwhile, Keith sits quietly in the passenger seat beside Lance. He inwardly yells at himself to say something, anything. So he says, “I like this song.”

Lance whips his head around to look at him, “What? You do?”

Keith nods his head, “Yeah, it’s catchy.”

There’s a moment of comfortable silence until Lance turns back to Keith and asks, “What kind of music do you listen to?”

“Uhhh,” Crap, Keith tries to think his way out of this one. But with that dopey smile on Lance’s face, Keith ends up saying whatever first pops into his head, “Usually punk music. Sometimes rock.”

Lance thinks for a moment and finally says, “So like, did you go through a punk phase?”

Keith’s brain is having a hard time catching up to his mouth which seems to want to talk for him, “Yeah, actually. The band I was in was a punk band. They were looking for a singer that would match their image and they found me.”

Lance’s eyes light up at the mention of the band, “Yeah, you mentioned that you were in a band! What was it like? You know, being in a band and stuff.”

Keith sighs, “It was okay. Though the bandmates argued pretty much all the time. It makes me wonder how they’re still going even now.”

Lance lifts a brow, “Wait, they’re still playing? Then how come you’re not with them?”

Keith doesn’t say anything for a while. The first song fades out and another one starts. A high-pitched voice begins to sing that Keith figures it’s of a young teenage boy.

 

_I know you see what I’m doing, everyday_

_I get that microphone and hit that money making stage_

_Watch me slay, watch me slay_

_Please obey, please obey_

Keith chuckles softly to himself, of course this song would fit Lance. Lance glances back at Keith and catches his laughing face, “What? You think my music taste is funny?”

Keith shakes his head, “No, it’s just that this song reminded me of something.” Keith sighs again before speaking, “Actually, the only reason I was in that band was because their original lead singer walked out on them and they were looking for a replacement. And I didn’t seek out to be in this band. I was sorta forced into auditioning by the drummer.”

Lance nods his head as he listens. Keith could have dropped the subject there, but he continues, “It was fun for the short while I was there, even if there was a lot or arguing. Sometimes, though, when they think I’m not listening, I can hear them argue about me. That the only reason I was there was because I was just a replacement.”

Keith takes a somewhat shaky breath, “The drummer really wanted me to be a permanent member, but I think she wanted me to just so she could get closer to me. A-anyway, the original singer ended up coming back and I just left.”

There’s a long pause. Keith worries he might have said too much when Lance doesn’t say anything. Keith goes to apologize when he finally speaks up, “So, you could’ve stayed? Have you ever wondered what would’ve happened if you stayed with the band?”

“I did wonder about it,” says Keith, “But, I knew it would never work out, especially how we didn’t exactly get along for half a year before I left.”

“What happened?”

Keith takes a deep breath, “Well, I... I had an argument with the drummer. I knew for a while that she was interested in me and we went for a couple of dates. We were taking a music break and she tried to… get me in the mood or something. I told her to stop, that I wasn’t interested. And she wouldn’t stop, saying things like me being her boyfriend and all that.”

Keith hopes that Lance can’t see him visibly shaking, “So I started to go off on her saying that I was only trying to be nice when we went out. I was never into her. We started yelling at each other and it sorta slipped that I was gay.” He brings a hand to the bridge of his nose and pinches hard. His eyes are shut tight, willing the tears not to fall, “It wasn’t how I wanted to come out. And she was pretty upset about it that she ended up telling her friends who I guess told their other friends… Pretty soon, the entire class knew I was gay. Guys made fun of me for it, calling me a fag. All the girls who apparently had crushes on me were angry at me for leading the drummer girl on.”

Keith let’s out a laugh, finding the situation funny somehow, “All of it wasn’t good for the band’s reputation. So I was pretty much alienated from the rest of the band.”

“Oh man,” Lance’s voice is low, “Keith, I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Keith shrugs, “It was pretty bad for a while, but it all eventually died down.”

They drive for another silence and the song comes to an end. The next song that plays booms to life. Keith glances at the screen where the song is listed and only sees the title “ _I Don’t Dance_.” Why does he vaguely recognize this song?

Then it dawns on him, and he’s glad to make the subject change, “Is this High School Musical?”

A smile returns to Lance’s face, “Yeah! You watched High School Musical?”

Keith scoffs, “Had to. I didn’t know what the other kids were talking about if I didn’t watch it.”

Lance begins to sing along to the song, “ _I’ll show you that it’s one and the same. Baseball, dancing, same game. It’s easy~. Step up to the plate –_ Hey, you should sing along with me! I’ll be Ryan and you be Chad.”

“What? No, no, no thanks.” Keith shakes his head but there’s a smile plastered on his face.

“C’mooooon. Sing with me!” Lance goes back to singing to only parts of the song, waiting for Keith to join.

Finally, Keith thinks to hell with it, and starts singing, “ _I don’t dance.”_

Lance smiles and points at Keith as he sings, _“I know you can.”_

_“Not a chance, no.”_

_“If I could do this, well you could do that.”_

_“But I don’t dance.”_

_“Hit it out of the park!”_

_“I don’t dance.”_

_“I say you can.”_

_“Not a chance. Oh!”_

_“Slide home, you score, swinging on the dance floor.”_

_“I don’t dance, no.”_

Both boys begin to dance in the car as the song heads to the next verse.

_“Two-steppin, now you’re up to bat. Bases loaded, do your dance. It’s easy~. Take your best shot, just hit it.”_

_“I’ve got what it takes, playin’ my game. So you better spin that pitch you’re gonna throw me, yeah.”_ And Lance leans in towards Keith, a smirk on his face and his best bedroomy eyes he could pull and sings along to the part _, “I’ll show you how I swing.”_

Keith feels the wind knocked out of him. Did Lance just flirt with him? He recovers fast to get back to singing along to the song. They make it past the “rap” part of the song and Keith notices that they’ve entered an apartment complex area.

Keith snaps back to attention when the instrumental ends and Lance is back to singing, “ _That’s what I mean, that’s how you swing.”_

_“You make a good pitch but I don’t believe.”_

_“I say you can.”_ Lance points at Keith.

 _“I know I can’t,”_ bellows Keith.

Together, they yell rather than sing, _“I don’t daaaaaaaance.”_

Keith doesn’t realize it until the song stops abruptly that the car is parked already. They remain seated in the car, catching their breaths and look at each other. Lance begins to laugh and eventually so does Keith.

“We should head inside,” says Lance. He unbuckles his seatbelt and Keith follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: I was originally going to make Keith a drummer in his past band!  
> If you're curious about more neat little facts like this, send me an ask on my tumblr @sweetboylance!


	10. [klancing intensifies]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get some work done for Keith's channel before they collaborate. And they share an intimate moment together...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? Another update? So soon?  
> Anyway, have y'all ever seen Pretty Little Liars? If you have, there should be a familiar shower scene :3c

Lance didn’t know what to expect. He was certainly caught off guard when Keith told him about what happened with his relationship with his former band. He saw the way Keith was trying to hold it together but pretended not to notice for Keith’s sake. He was just glad that in the few minutes they’ve met, Keith was already trusting to him.

But what Lance _definitely_ didn’t expect was how he just leaned into Keith and gave him his _bedroom eyes_ mid-song _._ Lance had always wanted to do that to someone when that particular song was on as it had his favorite line. Did that count as flirting? Oh god, did he flirt with Keith? Lance tries to remember Keith’s reaction but all his attention had been on driving. Oh well.

Lance leads the way to his apartment, suddenly very aware of what he’s wearing. The booty shorts aren’t too much, are they? Did Keith notice? Lance pushes those thoughts out of his head as he opens the door, finding it unlocked, meaning that Hunk was home from visiting the laundromat.

He tosses his keys somewhere into the living room and heads to the kitchen, “Make yourself comfortable. Do you want something to eat?”

Keith resigns to sitting onto one of the couches. “No, I’m good,” he calls back.

Lance opens the fridge and takes out a yogurt and grabs a spoon. He plops down on the other end of the couch Keith’s sitting in. He starts to stir his yogurt, “So, have you thought of anything for what we could do together?”

“I don’t know, to be honest.” Keith sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck. He internally kicks himself for not being prepared.

“I have an idea! But, uh, hold on,” Lance sticks his spoon in his mouth as he takes out his phone and starts typing in it. Keith stares at Lance’s profile for a bit, finding the image of Lance with a spoon in his mouth to be very endearing. He snaps back to attention when Lance speaks again, “Uh huh. Just as I thought,” he turns to Keith, his face uncharacteristically serious, “you haven’t uploaded at all this week.”

“Uhh…” Keith doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He knew that Lance had subscribed to him, but the fact that he cared about his uploading schedule made his heart flutter in his chest.

Lance leans closer to him and pokes a slender finger to his chest, “You didn’t run out of content to upload, did you?”

Keith just glances between his extended finger and his face. He finally finds his voice, “Uh, yeah. I haven’t made another video or anything.”

Lance leans back and resumes eating his yogurt, “Okay, change of plans. I’m gonna help you make your next couple of videos.”

Keith just blinks at him, “Uh, what? Why?”

Lance doesn’t answer though as fiddles with his phone some more until he sets it down on the coffee table. Keith glances at it and sees it’s opened to a note titled “Keith video ideas.”

“Okay, let’s brainstorm for your next, say, five videos,” says Lance.

“What?! Five?” Keith’s voice cracks. Lance just continues eating his yogurt, a concentrated look on his face.

He empties his yogurt and puts the plastic cup aside. Finally, he says, “Can you cook? I could film you cooking.”

Keith sighs, clearly not getting any answers to his questions, “I know how to make pancakes, but it’s been a while so-”

“Alright then,” Lance picks up his phone and starts typing in “cooking vlog: pancakes” into the list. “And I feel like you should do a cover song. We can discuss what song later.”

“A cover song?”

“Yeah, you know,” Lance turns to Keith, “Like, instead of singing along to a song, you sing by yourself and usually with a different instrumental track. I can get my friend Pidge to help us out with that part.”

Lance continues to throw out ideas for Keith. Finally, the list seems long enough to cover _ten_ videos.

“I’ll message you the list over twitter,” says Lance. He checks the time and hums, “We have time to maybe get a head start on one of them. Want to check out some songs?”

Keith just nods his head, “Great! Okay, follow me.” Lance get up from his spot on the sofa and heads further into the apartment. They enter a room that Keith recognizes as Lance’s bedroom based on Lance’s vlogs. Lance takes a seat on his computer chair and points to his bed, “You can take a seat there.”

Lance starts typing away at his computer and brings up his music. “Okay, so something that goes with your style, let’s see here,” Lance mutters to himself. He scrolls and plays several songs. He turns the volume up at a certain song, “How about this one?”

They both listen to the song for a while, paying close attention to the lyrics.

 

_Girl, you know I want your love_

_Your love was handmade for somebody like me_

_Come on now, follow my lead_

_I may be crazy, don’t mind me_

_Say boy, let’s not talk too much_

_Grab on my waist and put that body on me_

_Come on now, follow my lead_

_Come, come on now, follow my lead_

Keith bobs his head to the beat. It’s a very nice song with rather love-related lyrics. He nods his head to Lance, confirming his song choice. Lance smiles.

They continue listening to the song until it ends. Lance turns the volume back down, “Okay, so that song’s called Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. I’ll give you a few days to get the lyrics down. But nice choice there, Keith.”

Keith smiles. Lance goes to turn off the music when Keith says, “Hey, uh, what’s _this_ song?”

Lance pauses, “Oh, this one?” He raises the volume and starts the song over again. Keith listens for a while, focusing on the lyrics. It has a nice overall sound that he could probably fall asleep to. It isn’t until the song picks up to the chorus that has Keith caught under its spell.

 

_If I was dying on my knees_

_You would be the one to rescue me_

_And if you were drowned at sea_

_I’d give you my lungs so you could breathe_

The next part of the chorus gives Keith chills.

 

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

As the song continues to play, Keith shifts so he is sitting up straight and attentive. He doesn’t want to miss a word.

Finally, the song ends and Keith is hanging on the edge of his seat. He stands up abruptly, “Actually, I wanna do this song.”

Lance smiles at him, “Sure thing, buddy.”

 

 

The car ride back home mainly consisted of Keith practicing the lyrics to his newly picked song. Lance was silent, enjoying the sound of Keith’s voice filling the space between them. When the car pulls up in front of Keith’s apartment, Keith almost doesn’t want to leave.

Lance laughs, “Dude, the song’s on youtube, not just in my playlist.”

“Alright, alright,” says Keith, “So, you’ll come by again tomorrow?”

Lance nods his head, “Mhm. Gotta film those pancakes.”

Keith climbs out of the car and slams the door closed. He waves at Lance through the window and Lance waves back. With a sigh, Keith heads inside his own apartment.

 

 

The following morning, Lance arrives early and spends about ten minutes knocking on the door. Keith groggily opens it, “Yeah?”

“Dude!” Lance nearly shouts.

Keith wakes right up, “Lance! I, uh…”

Lance walks right past him into the apartment.  Keith quickly closes the door and catches up to Lance. “Shit, Lance. Sorry, I just woke up. I’ll be right back.” He heads to the bathroom to groom himself.

When he comes back, he finds Lance sitting on the couch, his own high tech camera in hand. “I’ll go change no-”

“No, no, no, no. That’s fine. You look really cute actually and that would be great for the viewers. It’ll give it a more domestic aesthetic,” Lance rambles.

Keith blushes. He said he looks cute in his black t-shirt and red jersey shorts. He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly, “O-okay, then.”

Lance exhales, “Alright then. Since you haven’t eaten breakfast yet, let’s get to those pancakes.”

They start filming Keith talking to the camera as he made pancakes from scratch. He talked about how he likes to cook but wished he could do it more often (mostly out of laziness). He also comments on how Shiro used to be very bad at cooking and Lance had to hold back a laugh for the sake of the video audio. Soon, the pancakes and filming are done.

“Do you want some?” Keith asks as he takes a seat at the dinner table.

“What? Oh,” Lance had planned to come film and be done with it. But since Keith was offering and, well, he didn’t want to be _rude_. “Yeah, thanks.”

They eat their pancakes in silence. Lance pulls out his phone to check off the pancakes off the list. He looks over the rest of the items. Let’s see… They could film the parkour over at a nearby skate park later this afternoon. Lance wants to give Keith a chance to practice his song cover, so maybe the parkour video can be filmed tomorrow…

“How about this?” Lance says, “I give you the rest of today to practice your song and we film the parkour tomorrow afternoon.”

Keith nods his head, “Yeah, okay. I should have the song down by the next day, anyway.”

“Perfect!” Lance shouts.

There’s more silence as they finish eating their pancakes. Keith suddenly speaks up, “Thanks, uh, for helping me, by the way.”

Lance smiles, warmth blossoming in his chest, “Hey,” he says softly, “anything for a friend.”

Keith stiffens. _Shit._ Lance hopes he didn’t go too far and assume they were friends already. But Keith soon visibly relaxes, “Thanks,” he says again.

 

 

The parkour shooting proved to be a success. Keith had warmed up and pretty soon, started jumping and flipping over stairs and walls. Lance hollered when Keith started climbing a wall and successfully reaching the top. All the while, Keith was grinning from ear to ear, glad to have an audience to impress.

Lance tosses Keith a water bottle as the latter lay panting on the couch, back in Keith’s apartment. Keith catches the bottle with ease.

He sits up and uncaps the water, “So,” he pants, “how was I?”

“Dude, that was so cool!” Lance is practically jumping in his skin, “I didn’t know you could do all that! Especially when you just straight up walked up that wall.”

Lance starts playing over the footage on his camera and shows Keith. Keith smiles.

“Damn, it’s _hot_ out.” Lance whines.

“Then why did you bring a hoodie?” Keith points out.

Lance sputters, “B-because, fashion! Shut up.” Keith laughs.

It’s heading towards the early afternoon and Lance won’t stop complaining about the heat. “God, I’m so sweaty. Why don’t you have proper air conditioning in here?”

Keith only shrugs, taking another sip of his water.

“Can I use your shower?” Keith chokes on his water. What did he say?!

Keith tries to catch his breath, “W-what?”

“I said, ‘Can I use your shower’.” Lance says so matter-of-factly.

“Wha- No! Why can’t you go home and use your own shower?”

Lance just leans back in his seat, an arm draped over his eyes, “I can’t stand another minute of this. Please~?”

Keith thinks for a moment. Well, Shiro won’t be home for another hour. And it _is_ a ten-minute drive between here and Lance’s own apartment…

He sighs, “Okay, fine. You can borrow my towel.”

Lance tips his head back as he wails, “Ughhh, yesss,” Keith looks away, flustered by the sight.

 

 

Keith sits in his room with Lance’s clothes tucked to the side of his bed. He had turned the shower on while Lance stripped in his room. With only a towel wrapped around his waist, Lance made his way to the shower. Keith held his breath as his naked form walked passed him.

It’s almost been five minutes and Keith can vaguely hear Lance humming a tune to a song he doesn’t recognize. Probably another pop song.

Keith suddenly hears noise from the living room. He goes to inspect when he hears Shiro’s voice call out to him, “Keith. I’m home.”

_Shit._ Lance is still in the shower. Shiro doesn’t even know that Lance is here. How is Keith going to explain himself out of this one? His legs decide to carry him to the bathroom. He closes the door soundlessly behind him. He goes to the shower curtains and shushes Lance to be quiet.

Lance sticks his head out of the shower curtain, “What? What’s going o-” Keith clamps a hand over Lance’s mouth and brings a finger to his lips, signaling him to be quiet. Lance nods his head and goes back to showering.

Keith walks back to the door and places his ear against it. He hears Shiro’s voice right on the other side, “Keith, are you in there?”

Keith jumps away from the door, startled. Oh god, what if Shiro needs to come in? There’s nowhere to hide except…

Shiro knocks against the door, “I’m coming in.”

Without thinking, Keith pulls back the shower curtain and climbs into the shower. He closes the curtain just in time for Shiro to open the door.

Keith didn’t know what to expect when he slowly turns to Lance’s naked form. Fortunately, Lance has his back turned to him. Keith tries to keep his eyes from wandering to a lower part of Lance’s body. But then Lance suddenly turns around, and Keith quickly puts a hand over Lance’s mouth. Keith decides to stare at the tile wall, unable to bear looking at Lance’s now smug looking face. He might not be able to see the smirk, but he can feel it under his hand.

“Sorry I had to barge in like this,” says Shiro, “I just need to get ready before I meet with Allura.”

Crap. If Keith stays quiet, Shiro will think something’s up. So he tries to level his breathing before replying, “Oh, is your date with her today?”

The smug look that was on Lance’s face is now gone. He goes to yank off Keith’s hand but Keith retaliates by putting his other hand on top of his mouth. He can feel Lance’s tongue brushing against his palm.

Shiro sighs, “It’s not a date. It’s just two adults meeting together and spending some time in each other’s company.”

Keith tries not to let his voice strain over how grossed out he is by having Lance’s saliva smeared all over his palm, “Sounds like a date to me. But what do you need to be in the bathroom for, anyway?” He glares at Lance who hasn’t stopped with the tongue thing.

“I just needed to shave. The chin stubble started growing out and I didn’t like it.”

Keith grunts softly, “You mean, you think _Allura_ won’t like it.”

Shiro sighs again, “Anyway, I’ll be right out in a few minutes.”

A few minutes?! The horror must have shown on Keith’s face as Lance is now back to being smug. Keith slowly retracts his hands and Lance turns back around to washing himself.

Keith’s eyes flicker towards Lance’s ass for a second, but looked away. He shouldn’t even be here, yet the universe decided that he should be stuck in a shower with his youtube crush fully naked beside him.

Keith thinks to hell with it, and glances back at Lance’s ass again. While it wasn’t very round, nor was it flat, it was… cute, to say the least. A grin stretches across Keith’s face.

What Keith wasn’t prepared for was when Lance suddenly turned around, giving Keith a view of… well…

Keith’s eyes snap back up to Lance’s face in time to see his smirking face. He most likely caught him staring at his ass and is now finding the situation funny. Keith settles for staring at the tile wall again, a blush spreading across his face.

Finally, after a few more minutes of this torture, Shiro announces, “Ok, I’ll be going now. See you later tonight!”

“S-say hi to Allura for me,” Keith yells back. God, he hopes that Shiro didn’t notice his stutter.

When the door closes, Keith just stand in the shower, waiting to make sure Shiro didn’t forget anything.

Lance, being a total smartass, says, “So, you gonna get out or you wanna wash me up?” Keith lightly shoves at him, still looking away from him, and gets out of the shower. When he’s out, he vaguely notices his wet clothes sticking to his skin.


	11. I've Got You Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to see Lance's perspective on that Shower Scene. Keith gets a little awkward. Also Keith finally does the cover song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm actually sick right now so this chapter came out a little later than I would like, but here it is!

Lance was surprised when Keith had allowed him to use his shower. He was only half joking about the heat and he could’ve powered through it until he got home to his own shower. But when Keith gave in and led him to his bedroom to strip, Lance just didn’t have the heart to tell him he was only joking.

He was in the shower, humming along to a tune, an old favorite. Lance rubbed at his face, mumbling the words he vaguely knew. “ _I’m Miss Sugar Pink, liquor, liquor lips. Hit me with your sweet love, steal me with kiss._ ” He hummed, “ _I’m Miss Sugar Pink, liquor, liquor lips. I’m gonna be your bubblegum bitch. I’m gonna be your bubblegum bitch._ ”

He would have kept humming along to the song playing in his head when he heard shushing on the other side of the shower curtain. He opened the curtain a little so he could stick his head out, “What? What’s going o-”

He felt a hand over his mouth and saw a semi-flustered Keith signaling with his other hand for him to be quiet. Lance just nodded his head and stepped back into the shower. Just what was going on, Lance wondered while washing his face in the water.

He then heard a voice that did not belong to Keith. It must have been his brother Shiro. Great, thought Lance, he hadn’t properly met Shiro yet.

But then Lance hears the shower curtain move behind him. What is Keith doing, Lance thought. After a thorough washing of his face, Lance turned around and was surprised to see Keith standing in the shower, fully clothed. He opened his mouth to say something, but Keith had put his hand over his mouth.

Okay, Lance thought, now he gets it. Keith wanted to keep his presence a secret. Which would explain why Keith just jumped into the shower pretending _he_ was the one showering. The thought made Lance almost laugh, except for the hand that is clamped over his mouth.

“Sorry I had to barge in like this,” said the voice, “I just need to get ready before I meet with Allura.”

Lance found it funny how Keith had to take a few deep breaths before answering, “Oh, is your date with her today?” Wait… Allura? Date?!

Was this guy going on a date with Allura? Lance tried to yank Keith’s hand off his mouth to get some answers, but Keith only strengthened his hold on him and added his other hand. Lance tried to smear his tongue across Keith’s hand like he did with his younger siblings. It didn’t work, though.

“It’s not a date,” said the voice, “It’s just two adults meeting together and spending some time in each other’s company.”

At least the tongue thing grossed Keith out, even if it wasn’t working the way Lance wanted it to. “Sounds like a date to me,” said Keith, “But what do you need to be in the bathroom for, anyway?” Keith then glared at Lance. But Lance found the action to be quite endearing in the situation rather than threatening at all.

“I just needed to shave. The chin stubble started growing out and I didn’t like it.”

“You mean, you think _Allura_ won’t like it.”

“Anyway, I’ll be right out in a few minutes.”

The look on Keith’s face after the voice said that really did it for Lance. If it wasn’t for the hands on his face, he’d be full on laughing by now. But he kept quiet even after Keith’s hands remove themselves from his mouth.

Lance turned back around to washing the front of his body. He thought about Allura and her supposed date with the guy on the other side of the shower curtain. He tried to score a date with her for how long? Too long, Lance decided. While he _was_ glad to be friends with her, Lance had expected to be heartbroken once Allura would have found a partner of her own. But oddly enough, he felt indifferent.

Once Lance was done cleaning his front, he turns around to wash his back against the running water. He didn’t expect to see Keith looking down at his ass with a grin on his face. As he turned, the grin on his face slowly falls and a tint of red spreads across his face. Lance can’t help but smirk. While he _was_ flattered to have Keith checking out his ass, he was more ecstatic to see Keith’s reaction to looking at his dick. And Lance is never shy about his body.

Keith’s eyes finally meet Lance’s and then settle on staring at the wall, away from Lance. Lance thought it was cute.

Finally, after some time, the voice announced, “Ok, I’ll be going now. See you later tonight!”

Lance thought it was funny to see Keith try to act normal when he’s still flustered, “S-say hi to Allura for me.”

He heard the door close and expected Keith to climb right out. But he seemed to be waiting for something. He also seemed determined not to look at Lance. Thinking that it’s probably okay to speak, Lance whispered, “So, you gonna get out or you wanna wash me up?”

Lance received a light shove to his shoulder, probably so he wouldn’t slip in the shower. Keith finally leaves the shower and Lance noted how his wet clothes cling to his skin. He laughed to himself.

 

 

Lance climbs out of the shower and dries himself with Keith’s (hopefully clean) towel. He puts his clothes back on in Keith’s room. All the while, he’s still thinking about what just happened in the bathroom. He thought Keith would be practical and explain to his brother that Lance was here and wanted to use the shower. But nooooo.

Lance heads into the living room where he spots Keith lying on his side on the couch, hands covering his face. He probably hasn’t heard Lance enter the room.

Lance decides against sneaking up on him, figuring that the guy has suffered enough. He makes sure he makes plenty of noise as he sits on the opposite end of the couch, which makes Keith shift a little, removing his hands from his face.

He sits up, “Sorry about, uh, back there.” Keith still refuses to look at Lance.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Lance reaches out to grip Keith by the shoulders, forcing the other to finally look him in the eye, “It’s okay. To be honest, I think you were the only one who was uncomfortable throughout the whole thing.” Keith’s cheeks go red and Lance has to hold back a grin.

“I can leave right now if you want,” Lance goes to get up but feels a tug against the sleeve of his hoodie. When he looks down, Keith is back to looking sheepishly elsewhere, away from Lance.

“Uh, um,” Keith starts, “W-we still have to edit today’s footage and i-it’s in your camera. So…”

Lance suppressed a sigh. This bashful side of Keith was doing weird things to him, giving him butterflies in his stomach. He sits back down on the couch and places a hand on Keith’s shoulder, “Hey,” he says, “We’ll edit the video only if you look at me.”

Lance laughs for real this time when Keith turned to him and started eyeing his body. Clearly, Lance’s naked form was fresh on Keith’s mind.

They edit the video together, albeit a bit quietly. The sun starts to set by the time they’re done. Keith closes his laptop, “Okay, so I’ll upload this on the next scheduled upload.”

Lance nods his head, “Alright, cool. Hey, what’s exactly is your schedule? You should post it somewhere on your channel.”

“I’m trying to upload on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays all at around noon,” says Keith.

“Oh, that’s kinda like my schedule!” Lance smiles, “Except I upload five videos a week.”

“Yeah, I, uh, based my schedule off of yours, actually.”

“Oh.” Lance didn’t know what to think of this.

Keith continued, “Yeah, I mean, I’ve been a fan of yours for… a while.”

“Oh~,” a wide grin plays on Lance’s lips, “Well, I’m always happy to meet a fan.” Keith lightly punches him in the arm. “Okay, but seriously, I’m a fan of you too!”

“What?” Keith could not believe what he was hearing.

Lance nods his head, “It’s true. You became my new inspiration and now, I’m like, way more pumped about doing youtube work!”

They remain seated on the couch, taking all this new information in. It’s Keith this time who starts to laugh with Lance soon following.

 

 

Keith finds it hard to sleep that night, his giddiness keeping him up. He replays what Lance had said to him in his head.

_I’m a fan of you too._

Keith grabs his pillow and smothers it against his face, a low, high-pitched squeal emanating from him.

He only managed a few hours of sleep before the alarm on his phone rang by his pillow. Keith gets up and stretches. As he performs his morning routine he hums the lyrics to the song quietly. He has the lyrics down already but some extra practice wouldn’t hurt.

When he’s out of his room and shuffles into the kitchen for breakfast, Keith finds Shiro sipping at a coffee mug at the dinner table, swiping at his phone.

Keith tries to forget the bathroom incident from yesterday as he says, “So, how did yesterday go?”

“Oh, Keith,” Shiro turns of his phone, “It was great, actually. I don’t think I told you what we did, did I?” Keith shakes his head, “Well, we went to this park that was holding a street performance for the upcoming fair a few towns over. You know the one, right?”

“Yeah, the really big one with the horse races and the crazy rides?”

Shiro snaps his fingers, “That’s the one! Anyway, we watched a band performance on the side of the street by the park and we even got food from one of the stands there.”

By now, Keith had gotten a bowl for his cereal and is now sitting by Shiro. Keith saw how Shiro went back to fiddling with his phone and turned it off as soon as Keith got near. His curiosity is piqued, “So, what’cha doing on your phone there? I believe there was a rule established that prohibited phones from the dinner table.” Keith mocks as he takes a crunchy bite of his dry cereal.

Shiro sputters, “I-uh, K-Kei-”

But Keith interrupts him, “I was only kidding, Shiro. You wouldn’t have your phone out here if it wasn’t something important.” Shiro seemed to calm down at that and takes another sip of his coffee. But Keith opens his mouth again, “So, you talking to Allura right now, or what?”

Shiro chokes.

 

 

Keith waited patiently for Lance to arrive. When he did, the car ride over to Lance’s place consisted of mainly talking about the cover song.

“You got the song down?” Lance asked.

“You know it,” replied Keith.

“Oh! And your brother still doesn’t know about it yet, right?”

“Nope,” Keith pops the “p”, “he has no idea, well, as far as I know.”

“I hope he’ll like the song,” Lance glances at Keith, a warm smile on his face, “especially if it’s coming from you.”

When they arrive, Keith meets Pidge who had arranged the instrumental track prior.

“So,” she says, adjusting her glasses, “this is Lance’s new inspiration.” She extends a hand and Keith shakes it. She leans close, “You know, he talks about you, like, all the time.”

Keith fights the blush that’s now forming on his face. “O-oh, really?”

“Pidge! What did you say to him?” Lance nearly shouts, “Look at him, he’s blushing.” That made Keith blush even more.

Pidge only gives Keith a smug grin before leaving to her laptop. Lance walks up to Keith, “Hey, man. Are you okay?” Keith only manages a nod of his head. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Keith’s voice cracks a little, “I’m fine.”

Lance looks doubtful but takes his word for it. “Okay,” he says, “let’s go to the recording room I set up for you.” Lance grabs Keith’s (sweaty) hand and leads him to his room again. It’s been altered since the last time Keith visited. A mic stand sits in the corner, sound-absorbing Styrofoam covering the wall beside it.

Pidge comes in and starts connecting some wires together. Lance goes to his computer desk and pulls out a set of large headphones. He lets it dangle from one finger and faces Keith, “Whenever you’re ready, buddy.”

Keith takes the headphones and uses the next few minutes to warm up his voice while Pidge finishes her tech stuff. When he announces that he’s done, he notices Lance’s high-tech camera on a tripod facing him. He points at it, “Uh, what’s this for?”

“Oh!” Lance looks up from adjusting his camera, “I hope you don’t mind that we record you singing, you know, for the video. Oh and we’ll be recording a couple times. You know, for you to record your own backup vocals.”

Keith just nods his head. After some final preparations, Lance starts recording, “Okay, whenever you’re ready.” Keith signals Pidge to start playing the music.

The music eases in, and Keith is ready.

 

_When we were young_

_We were the ones_

_The kings and queens_

_Oh yeah, we ruled the world_

Keith isn’t sure of where to look at so he just stares at the pop filter of the microphone in front of him.

 

_We smoked cigarettes_

_Man, no regrets_

_Wish I could relive_

_Every single word_

_We’ve taken different paths_

_And travelled different roads_

_I know we’ll always end up on the same one when we’re old_

_And when you’re in the trenches_

_And you’re under fire I will cover you_

Keith takes a silent breath and closes his eyes, concentrating on the lyrics.

 

_If I was dying on my knees_

_You would be the one to rescue me_

_And if you were drowned at sea_

_I’d give you my lungs so you could breathe_

He tries not to tear up as grips the side of his headphones like a vice.

 

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_Oh brother, we’ll go deeper than the ink_

_Beneath the skin of our tattoos_

_Though we don’t share the same blood_

_You’re my brother and I love you_

_That’s the truth_

_We’re living different lives_

_Heaven only knows_

_If we’ll make it back_

_With all our fingers and out toes_

_5 years, 20 years, come back_

_It will always be the same_

Keith squeezes his eyes shut during chorus again. Focused on steadying his voice. The tears well up so much that he lets a single tear run down his cheek as he sings. Hopefully, no one will be able to pick up on that. He finally makes it to the outro of the song singing a final:

 

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

_I’ve got you brother-er-er-er_

Keith opens his eyes and sees that Lance is staring _right at him_. Pidge is just sitting with her laptop, her own set of headphones settled on her head. Keith makes to quickly wipe at the tears in his eyes, “Sorry. It’s just that… this song really speaks to me. About my relationship with Shiro.”

It really did. Particular parts of the lyrics really did touch Keith. He’d do anything for Shiro, who was his only family despite them not being related by blood. He thinks about back when Shiro came back from the military with an amputated arm and how hard it was for him to adjust, especially with his PTSD. Shiro had received all the help he could get and got personal trainer and counselor Coran.

But despite all that, Keith had wished he could do something. It wasn’t until Shiro had sat him down and told him that just by being by his side, Shiro found the strength to get up every morning and do what he had to do. Keith starts to tear up again, “Sorry again, I just-”

Lance gives him a reassuring smile and pulls him into a tight hug. Keith stiffens at first, but soon relaxes to the touch.


	12. Candy Collabing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some work on Keith's channel, Lance and Keith finally do a collab together that involves... candy? It's more likely than you think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recovered from my sickness, yay! Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter and I hope you guys will like it too!

The recording goes on with Keith singing his own backup vocals, Pidge adjusting the audio equalizer among other tech things that Lance doesn’t quite understand, and with Lance monitoring the recording on his high-tech camera. Lance didn’t want to say anything when he saw Keith cry a little. Partly out of not interrupting the recording, and partly out of trusting Keith. Keith hadn’t signaled to stop the recording and pushed through.

And Lance admired that about Keith. He had to admit, the way Keith closed his eyes shut as he concentrated on singing all while a sudden tear fell from his cheek looked very beautiful to Lance. He had noticed earlier, but Keith _definitely_ had very pretty eyelashes that compliment his very pretty eyes. He could watch Keith sing all day. He had a nice sounding voice to boot. God, Lance wondered, how was Keith still single. At least, he assumed he was. He should make a point to ask.

They finish the recording and Keith removes his headphones as he looks at Pidge, “So, how was I?”

She gives him a thumbs-up and a smile, “That was great. You totally blew my mind back there.” She turns to Lance, “Too bad you couldn’t hear it all together.”

Lance waves it off, “I’ll get to hear it once you’ve edited the whole thing.” Keith gives Lance a questioning look, “Oh. Since the audio was recorded into Pidge’s laptop, it makes sense for her to edit your video. It’s still yours for your channel, promise.”

“Okay,” mutters Keith. He takes a sip of his water bottle for the recording. He still seems to be reeling from the song. Not that Lance could blame him. He could practically feel the love for his brother from where he was standing. Lance didn’t know what came over him when he hugged him. Out of comfort or reassurance, he doesn’t know. What he did know was that it had worked to calm Keith down a bit. Lance wasn’t sure how. He figured the effect would be more pronounce if it came from his brother directly. Either way, Lance was glad to be of some help.

 

 

The plastic bag in Lance’s hand crinkles as he sets it on the living room coffee table. He takes out a small colorful box and shakes it a little, making it rattle. Keith eyes it nervously, a wicked grin on Lance’s face.

“Why are we doing this?” Keith asks.

“What? You feeling scared~?” Lance coos.

Keith grunts, and a bit too loudly says, “I’m not scared!”

Lance lifts his hands in surrender, “Woah, okay, whatever you say~.” He pushes the plastic bag aside and sits down on the couch next to Keith. He reaches for the camera remote and presses a button and the red LED light on the camera lights up, signaling that it is recording.

Lance waves at the camera, “Hey everyone! I am Lancelot and as you can see, I’m not alone today as I have my friend Keith joining me today.” Keith waves at the camera, “He has his own youtube channel which I will link in the description. But today, we’re gonna be doing something fun.”

“I don’t think it’ll be fun for us,” comments Keith.

“Oh c’mon, Keith,” says Lance. He takes out the colorful little box and shows it to the camera, “So I’ve got these jelly beans-” Keith reels at the sight of the box, “-but, they’re not just any jelly beans.” Lance gestures to the little box with his other hand, “It’s Bean Boozled!”

“Oh man,” Keith feigns excitement, “What flavors do they come in, Lance?”

Lance grins, “I’m glad you asked, Keith.” He turns the box in his palm and begins to read off the list of flavors, “Let’s see… We have: dead fish, strawberry banana smoothie, spoiled milk, coconut, stinky socks, Tutti Frutti, lime, buttered popcorn, rotten egg, lawn clippings, tooth paste, berry blue, vomit, canned dog food, peach, chocolate pudding, booger, juicy pear, moldy cheese, and caramel corn.”

Keith has a disgusted look on his face, “The flavors are even worse than I imagined.”

Lance grabs a small bowl that’s already on the coffee table, “What were gonna do is-” he opens the little box and begins to dump out all of its contents into the clear bowl “-grab a jelly bean from this bowl here, take a chance at whatever color we pick, and eat one.”

“This is a bad idea,” says Keith as he reaches for his plastic spit cup.

Lance shakes the box, making sure every jelly bean makes it into the bowl. He leaves the box within reach on the table and bring the bowl closer to him and Keith. “So, who’s goin’ first?” Keith just blinks at him. “Fine. I’ll go first.” He reaches into the bowl and grabs a light blue jelly bean. “Okay, this is either going to be Berry Blue, or toothpaste. Well, here goes.” Lance pops the jelly bean in his mouth and starts chewing.

Keith eyes him carefully, watching for any kind of reaction. Then suddenly, Lance groans, his eyes shut tight, “Oh god,” he blinks his eyes open, “ _That_ is a very strong toothpaste flavor. I was hoping it would be minty at least but that’s just _bitter_.” He spits the jelly bean into his own spit cup. He groans again, “Okay, buddy. Your turn.”

Keith gulps. He reaches towards the bowl and picks a maroon colored bean. Lance grabs the box and looks back and forth between the bean in Keith’s hand and the box. “It looks like it’s either canned dog food or chocolate pudding. Bottoms up, dude!” Lance hollers.

Keith quickly pops the candy into his mouth and chews carefully. Lance leans in close to his face. “God, I can smell the toothpaste you ate.” Keith shoves at Lance.

“And I can smell your jelly bean too,” points Lance, “It doesn’t… smell bad.”

Keith keeps chewing until he finally swallows, “It was chocolate pudding.” He smiles, relieved.

“Okay,” Lance reaches for the bowl, “my turn again.” He grabs a white one, “Please be coconut.” He pops it into his mouth.

“I’d probably never get the white one, even if it was coconut.”

“What? You don’t like cocon– ughh.” Lance blanches.

“Is it spoiled milk?” Lance nods his head as he spits into his cup.

After Lance has recovered enough, Keith reaches into the bowl and picks up a light green bean. “That’s uh,” Lance breathes, “either lawn clippings or lime.”

Keith puts it into his mouth and chews. He nods his head as he says, “Lime.”

Lance makes a motion of flipping the table, “What the heck?! How do you keep getting good ones?” He angrily takes another bean from the bowl, “Okay, this better be buttered popcorn.” He puts the candy into his mouth.

He chews for a while and suddenly shoots his arms up, surprising Keith, “I got a good one, finally!”

Lance grabs the bowl and shoves it into Keith’s face, “C’mon, pick a bad one please.”

“Wow,” says Keith, “Gee, thanks.” He picks another light green one.

“Okay, that’s either booger or juicy pear,” Lance checks the box.

Keith pops it into his mouth. He chews thoughtfully and his face starts to cringe, “Ugh, my god!”

Lance laughs at Keith’s reaction, “Oh my god, yes! Finally!”

Keith spits into his cup and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ugh, that was awful.”

They continue eating (and spitting out) the jelly beans for a few more minutes though they never finish the bowl. Finally, Lance gives his youtube outro to the camera, “Anyway, guys. It was sorta fun doing this-”

“That was fucking nasty.”

“-anyway, go check out Keith’s channel for another collab! And, as always, I’ll see you guys in the next video. Bye!” He and Keith wave at the camera together. Then Lance reaches for the remote and stops the recording.

“We should’ve had some water or something to wash the taste out,” says Keith. He gets up to go to the kitchen, but Lance grabs his wrist and pulls him back down to the couch.

“Whoa! Hold on there. I’ve already thought of that,” he reaches for the plastic bag again, “I bought some candy for you to try and to help wash out the taste of some of those jelly beans.”

Keith lifts an eyebrow, “More candy? Is this the other collab for my channel that you mentioned?”

Lance grins, “Mhmm. Oh, don’t worry, you’ll love it. It’s those Mexican candies that I bought from one of those little markets out of town.”

Keith looks back and forth between the plastic bag and Lance’s grinning face. He sighs, “Okay, but I trust you _after all that_.”

“Yeah, yeah, just get ready to do your intro,” Lance reaches for the remote again and presses record.

Keith waves at the camera, “Hey, guys. Keith Kogane here. Uh, today I’m with Lancelot-” he gestures to Lance “-aka my friend Lance and he’s apparently going to show me some more candy.” Lance makes a show of ruffling the plastic bag.

“Mexican candy.” Lance adds.

“Which is odd because you’re Cuban,” point Keith. “Anyway, we’re gonna have this ‘Mexican candy’ after that whole thing with the jelly beans which you can watch on Lance’s channel. I’ll leave a link in the description for you guys. Now-” he faces Lance “-without further ado, why don’t you, uh, start showing me this candy.”

Lance grins and begins to dump out the bag of its contents. All sorts of colorful candies come out. When Lance is done, he tosses the bag to the side and turns to Keith, “How about you pick one?”

Keith scans over the candy scattered across the table. He reaches for a small little plastic cup with a picture of a kid with a green cap tasting a crème candy from a little spoon, “What’s this?”

“Oh! That’s _Duvalín_! It’s one of my favorites. Here,” Lance finds a small plastic spatula along with another little cup, “I bought both kinds for you to try. Each cup has two flavors to taste, which are like, combo flavors. The one you have is vanilla-strawberry and this one is vanilla-hazelnut. The hazelnut is practically Nutella.”

Keith begins to peel the top film off of his cup to reveal the soft looking crème candy. He takes a sniff at the candy before grabbing the little spatula from Lance. He takes a scoop from the strawberry side and sticks into his mouth. He then takes a scoop from the vanilla side, savoring each little scoop. Soon, he’s licking the cup clean, and Lance is trying really hard not to think about Keith’s tongue and how it swirls in the cup. “I take it you like it?” Keith nods his head, already peeling open the other cup.

He soon finishes that cup as well. Keith smacks his lips, savoring the aftertaste, “I like the hazelnut one better.”

“I like both of them, to be honest,” says Lance. He licks his own little spatula. He had gotten a cup for himself too. “Okay,” he announces, throwing their little cups and spatulas into the plastic bag for trash, “what else catches your eye?” Keith looks at their reduced pile. He spots a plastic cylinder with a green middle, white bottom cylinder, and a red cap on top. He picks it up and turns it over in his hand, trying to figure out what kind of candy it is.

“Oh, that’s another good one! It’s called _Pelon Pelo Rico_ and it has a lot more candy so it might take a while for you to finish it. I’d save that one for last.”

“Okay then,” Keith puts the cylinder back on the table. He sees a plastic spoon filled with some sort of brown candy all wrapped with a piece of plastic and a rubber band. He picks it up to his face, “Uh, why is there a plastic spoon here?”

“That, my friend, is a spoonful of _Tamarindo._ It’s a sort of spicy candy that feels almost like peanut butter in your mouth.” Lance finds another similar plastic spoon and begins to unwrap it, “You just eat the whole spoonful, look.” He sticks it into his mouth and makes a scraping motion with his teeth. When he takes the spoon out of his mouth, most of the candy is gone.

“Okay,” Keith does the same. He moves the candy around in his mouth, “It’s not really that spicy, but it’s good.”

“The _Pelon_ you picked up before also has _tamarindo_. So it’ll taste just about the same,” Lance informs. He tosses their now clean spoons into the plastic bag as well.

“What about this one?” Keith picks up a circular soft candy with the wrapper having a picture of a rose on it.

“Oh. That’s _De La Rosa Mazapan_. It’s like a powdery, peanut candy. It crumbles easily, so be careful.”

“You seem less excited about this one,” comments Keith. He carefully unwraps it, but it’s already starting to crumble.

“Yeah, well. It’s really dry to me, so I don’t really like them,” explains Lance. He watches for any reaction from Keith when he takes a bite.

“Oh my god,” he says with his mouth full, “that _is_ dry.” He begins to rewrap the remainder of the candy to throw away into the plastic bag. He coughs a little, “Ugh, I didn’t like that one as much.”

“That’s okay, man. Try overpowering that with another _tamarindo_ candy.” Lance holds up a thin yellow rectangle wrapper, “This one’s called _Pulparindo_ , and I only bought one of these so we’re splitting this one.” He begins to unwrap it and when he does, a soft looking rectangular shaped candy sticks out.

“It looks like beef jerky,” says Keith. He leans in to smell it, “But it doesn’t smell like it? It smells kinda sweet.”

Lance breaks the candy in his hand and gives half of it to Keith, “Here. Oh and these tend to be really spicy, just a fair warning.”

Keith smirks, “I like spicy food,” and downs the candy. This one proves to be more solid so Keith puts more effort in chewing. “Oh wow,” he says with his mouth full, “that _is_ spicy. But also sweet and kinda salty. I like it.”

They eat the remainder of their candy pieces in silence. Lance licks his fingers, savoring the taste, “Okay, we can have one more before that _Pelon_. You’re not full yet, are you?”

“Nope, I’m good,” Keith assures, “though, this did become my lunch.” He looks over the remaining candy. There’s now a lot fewer candy, mostly some lollipops and another little square package. He picks it up and attempts to read the words across the little package, “’ _Salsagheti’_? Is that an actual Spanish word? Or is that the name of the candy?”

“That’s just the name of the candy. It’s made to look like spaghetti, see?” Lance takes the candy from him and flips the package over to its clear side, “There’s also this little packet of sauce in there to put on your ‘spaghetti.’” He starts ripping open the package. He digs under the spaghetti candy for the sauce packet. He rips it open and drizzles the sauce across the candy.

Once he’s emptied it, he begins to dig into the candy, “Oh, and I only bought one of these too, so I hope you don’t mind sharing.”

Keith reaches in to grab a strand of the spaghetti candy. It seemed really long so he starts pulling at it until its within his biting reach. He doesn’t really notice that it’s the same strand that _Lance_ is eating until he finds he can’t keep tugging at it. He looks to see why that is and is faced with Lance’s face _really close to his face_.

He leans back and drops the candy, “Sorry! I, uh,” Keith sheepishly looks away.

“Dude, we could’ve had a ‘Lady and the Tramp’ moment. You know, the one where they eat the spaghetti and then kiss by ‘accident’,” he lifts his hands to do the air quotes.

“Wait,” Keith looks back at him, “Did you plan that?” Lance doesn’t say anything, answering instead with the smug grin on his face.

He doesn’t know why, but Keith’s first instinct was to hit him. So he does. “Ah! No! Stop!” Lance laughs. Keith tries to control the heat that is coming to his face.

They eat the remainder of their spaghetti candy in silence. When they finish, Lance reaches for the last candy and announces, “Okay, so, this one is my personal favorite because it’s so fun to eat. Here, I’ll show you how you eat it.”

It’s the cylinder _Pelon_ and Lance seemed to have bought two of them, one for each of them. He first removes the plastic and uncaps it. “Ok, so you see these little edges on the side?” Keith nods. “You push them down and look at what happens.” He pushes the green plastic down and on the top, the candy slowly comes out.

“Oh, so it’s sorta like those playdough toys where you push out the playdough between the holes,” Lance looks at Keith and sees that his eyes are sparkling with interest. Keith quickly unwraps his own _Pelon_ and uncaps it. He pushes the green plastic down and gasps lightly when the candy pushes out.

“Once you get to the point where you can’t push down anymore, remove the white cylinder plastic ‘cause there’s still gonna be more candy there that hasn’t been… uh,” Lance trails off as he watches Keith _suck_ on the tip of the green plastic. He catches the little sliver of tongue as Keith laps up the candy.

Keith didn’t seem to notice how Lance’s brain is short circuiting, “Wow, you’re right. This _is_ fun to eat.” He pushes down again to get even more of the candy. Lance smiles fondly at him as he watches Keith.

Keith faces Lance, “Oh, that means I have to end the video here right?”

Lance snaps back to attention, “Huh? Oh, yeah.”

Keith faces the camera, “So, that’s it for today. Again, I’ll leave a link to Lance’s channel in the description for you guys. Anyway, I’ll see you guys in the next video.” He waves goodbye while Lance smiles and gives a thumbs-up.

Lance reaches for the remote again and turns off the recording. He gets up and stretches, “Well, that was fun. And it definitely got those awful jelly bean flavors out of my mouth. How ‘bout you?”

Keith remains seated on the couch, still lapping up his candy, “Oh yeah, that was a great idea on your part.”

“I’m going to go get some lemonade,” Lance announces. He leaves the living room and escapes into the kitchen where he can think about how his obvious ogling is most likely going to playback on video for Keith to see.


	13. The Fair's in Town!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith has never gone to the fair. And Lance is willing to take him there. Part out of spending time with Keith and part out of getting him on the ferris wheel, the most romantic spot in the whole fair.

“You’ve never been to the big county fair?!” Lance leans close to Keith’s face. They’re hanging out in Lance’s air conditioned living room with Hunk and Pidge. They just recently uploaded their collab videos and were just discussing future plans. Hunk brought up how he wanted to visit the county fair again this year and that’s when Keith mentioned that he’d never gone.

“Uh, no. I haven’t,” Keith tries to lean away.

Lance sits back, flabbergasted. Hunk speaks up from his spot on one of the couches, “It’s really fun. There’s all sorts of games, food, and crazy rides.”

“It’s even more fun at night with all the lights,” adds Pidge.

Keith just looks back and forth between everyone. He then looks at Lance who’s shaking his leg in place, deep in thought. He looks up, snaps his fingers, and points at Keith, “That’s it. I’m taking you.”

“What?” Keith sits up, “No, no, you don’t have to.”

“Nope. I’m inviting you to come with us this year, and that’s final.” Lance takes a sip from his lemonade and crosses his arms.

“We always go as a group,” says Hunk, “And since you’ve become our new friend, it wouldn’t be right to not invite you to come with us.”

“He’s right,” Pidge adjusts her glasses, “We’ve gotten to know each other pretty well. It’ll be fun.”

Keith thinks for a moment, “Well, Shiro is going with Allura to the fair too…”

“That’s perfect, actually. We could all go as a big group if you want,” Hunk supplies. Lance remains silent at the mention of Allura.

“No, that’s okay,” says Keith, “They’re going together for a date and I don’t want to get in my brother’s way.” He pauses. “I should at least buy my own ticket.”

“Wrong,” sings Lance, “I’m buying your ticket _and_ paying for you. I’m inviting you, so you don’t have to spend a dime.”

Keith sighs, “Okay, fine.”

 

 

The day arrives and Keith is eagerly waiting at home for Lance to come pick him up, clutching his fair ticket in his hand. He jumps when he hears the door knock rather loudly. He answers the door to see Hunk. He waves at him, “Hey, we’re here! You ready?”

Keith nods his head, smiling, “Yeah. I’m really excited, actually.” He gets out and locks the door behind him. Hunk leads him to the car waiting in front of the apartment.

“Oh, and since you’re the one invited, you get to ride shotgun,” Hunk winks at him. Keith breathes a laugh. That means he gets to sit next to Lance, who’s the one driving everyone. He climbs into the car while Hunk settles in the back with Pidge. The interior is cool compared to the heat of the air outside and some music is playing softly.

“Okay, we all ready?” Lance announces. When he receives confirmation from everyone, he turns back to the car stereo, “Alright then, let’s go!” He turns the volume up a bit and Keith instantly recognizes the song. He tries to hold back a chuckle but Lance catches it, “What?”

Keith shakes his head, “Nothing, it’s just that…” He sighs. “You made a dancing video to this song and it was hilarious.”

“Oh, you liked that video, did you?” He smirks and starts rolling his shoulders to the beat of the song. He begins to sing along to the lyrics and Keith can hear an “Oh boy,” from Hunk and a sigh from Pidge.

“ _Stumblin’ but yeah, you still lookin’ hella fine. Keep doin’ what you do and Imma make you mineee,”_ he splays his hand against his chest for effect, “ _Well you’re a… Hot Mess and I’m falling for youuu. And I’m like, ‘Hot damn’ let me make you my boo._ ” He makes those same bedroomy eyes like he did before at Keith again while singing the chorus.

Lance continues to roll his body to the beat of the song, “ _’Cause you can shake it, shake it, shake it. Yeah, you know what to do. You’re a… Hot Mess and I’m lovin’ it, hell yes._ ” He keeps dancing and singing in his seat until the song ends and a different one comes on.

Keith feels out of breath even though he’s been calmly sitting in his own seat. Hunk speaks up over the music in the backseat, “That’s Lance for ya.”

 

 

They make it past the fair entrance and body checks. They walk around for a bit until they make it to a crowded area where everyone is looking up. Confused, Keith looks up and sees some people on top of a high ledge with a cord hanging from it. He feels Lance stop beside him, “Oh, someone’s gonna do a bungee jump! Let’s watch!”

“Bungee jump?” Keith didn’t realize how big this fair could be.

“Yeah,” says Hunk, “People bungee jump like every hour or so. It’s really scary to some people so there’s not a whole lot of volunteers.”

“Would _you_ do it?” Lance looks at Keith. Before Keith answers, he waves his hand off, “You’re probably too scared.”

“Lance did the bungee jump before,” says Pidge, “He pissed himself when he dropped.”

Lance sputters, “Wh- I did not! No one knows for sure what that mysterious liquid was but I swear it wasn’t me.”

They all watch as the volunteer was pushed from the ledge and falls. The bungee cord springs them back up and down until eventually the person is just dangling in the air. The crowd applauds and then begins to disperse.

“I’ll do it,” Keith finally says.

Lance begins to holler, “Ohhhhh! Did you hear that, guys? Keith here thinks he won’t succumb to the fear.” He drapes an arm over Keith’s shoulders, “Don’t worry, I’ll film you.”

 

 

Lance is snickering as he watches Keith climb the ledge with the people operating the bungee. He already started recording on his phone, not wanting to miss a thing. It takes a while for them to attach the bungee cord to him and they seem to be talking Keith through it. Lance expects them to push Keith off like they did to him when he couldn’t jump himself. It would look hilarious with Keith’s arms flailing around.

But then Keith turns around, looking down at the new crowd that had formed. Lance wonders if he can see him with his phone out. But he didn’t spend that much time looking as Keith _fucking swan dives_ off the edge.

“What?!” Lance shrieks.

“Whoa, Keith sure is something,” Hunk comments.

Keith falls with so much grace that his body doesn’t ragdoll as much when the cord springs him back up. The crowd cheers so loud it drowns out the sound of Lance’s blabbering.

 

 

The group waits for Keith to come back. He comes up to Lance first, “So, how was I?”

Lance just gapes at him for a while. When he doesn’t answer, Keith waves his hand over Lance’s eyes, which Lance catches, “I’m not blind! Just, just-”

“Dude! That was so awesome!” Hunk hollers, “You didn’t seem afraid of doing it at all.”

“Yeah well,” Keith rubs at the back of his neck, “I _was_ pretty scared. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking.”

“Let’s go buy some ride tickets to go on some rides then!” says Pidge excitedly. They line up at a ticket booth and buy tickets in pairs. Keith is paired with Lance (obviously) while Pidge and Hunk are paired together. “Let’s do something together before we go our separate ways,” Pidge announces.

“Wait, separate?” Lance asks.

Hunk nods his head along with Pidge, “Yeah, considering how I threw up a lot the last time we were here and how Pidge was too short for a lot of the rides, well stick to anything more tame and playing some games.”

“But don’t worry,” Pidge looks smugly in Lance’s direction, “We wouldn’t want to get in the way between you two.” Lance struggles to form coherent sentences while Keith fights a blush that threatens to form on his face. Did that mean… it would be like a date with Lance?

But neither get a chance to form a proper rebuttal to what Pidge just said as Hunk points somewhere ahead of them, “Hey, how about bumper cars!” He and Pidge run off in that direction.

Lance seemed to have recovered enough to follow. But Keith remains standing in his spot, thinking about spending time alone with Lance and this… date possibility. Lance looks back at Keith, “Hey, buddy. You comin’?”

Keith shakes his head to clear his thoughts and catches up to Lance, “Coming!”

They all line up, tickets ready. “Hey, should we all get our own car?” Pidge asks.

“Yeah! We should.” Lance leans over to Keith, “I can’t wait to ram into you.” It takes a couple of seconds for Lance to realize what he just said. It doesn’t help when Keith looks away, a blush forming on his face. “Whoa, I mean – you know!” Pidge snickers. “You know what I meant!” Lance says a little too loudly.

They are finally allowed in and they all run to empty cars. Once all the cars are filled, the announcers voice fills the air, “ _Alright everybody! Just press the pedal to go and use the wheel to turn!”_ And with that, the cars begin to go. Keith didn’t pick a very good spot to start as he was dead center of all the other cars. But he finds an opening and drives out.

He looks around for his friends when he feels something bump into him from the back. When he turns around, he sees Lance laughing behind him. When they make eye contact, Lance sticks his tongue out and continues to ram into Keith. Keith turns a wheel a bit too sharply, but he gets out of Lance’s way nonetheless.

Keith takes a while to get accustomed to the sensitive steering wheel and drives around the perimeter, looking for Lance. He spots him on the other side and starts heading toward him, getting bumped by others along the way.

Lance seems to have caught on as he’s driving away from Keith. Keith presses hard on the pedal, trying to catch up to Lance. All the while, Lance is laughing, and Keith cracks a smile. Eventually, Lance is bumped in the front, allowing Keith to come up and hit him from behind.

They keep going for another minute or so until the announcer signals the end and all the cars slow to a stop. Everyone gets out. Lance is grinning from ear to ear, “Wow! That’s was so much fun. How was my driving?”

“Oh you were a great driver,” Keith smiles.

“Aw, really?” Lance makes a show of batting his eyelashes in Keith’s face. Keith shoves at him playfully.

“Okay, well,” Pidge readjusts her glasses, “Hunk and I will go look around for some games and some tamer rides. You two have fun.” She waves and she and Hunk head towards a direction and disappearing into the crowd.

Lance leans an arm against Keith’s shoulder, “Let’s get going, Keith! I’m thinking of going on that one ride that takes you up and then just drops you.”

And so, Lance and Keith go from one extreme ride to the next. A lot of them include spinning, swinging high in the air, or a combination of the two. Nightfall quickly comes and the air becomes slightly chillier, except that Keith’s body is overheated from the adrenaline of all the rides.

“Hey, have you ever been on a ferris wheel?” Lance asks. They’re just walking around now. They’re on their last few ride tickets and are deciding on what ride they should go on last.

“No, I haven’t,” Keith answers. He looks at the big ferris wheel far off into the distance. “Seems kinda slow paced.”

“Yeah, but,” Lance hunches his shoulders, embarrassed, “W-we’ve been on almost all of the crazy rides. Plus, I think you should at least get a view of the whole fair from up top.”

Keith hums, “Okay then. We should head over there then.”

They make their way to the ferris wheel and find that there’s a _massively long_ line. Lance huffs in frustration, “The line to the ferris wheel is long, as always.”

“Why did you want to go the ferris wheel in the first place then?”

Lance looks away from Keith, trying to hide the blush that’s forming across his face, “I-it’s just one of my favorites, okay?”

Lance seems to be acting weird, Keith thought. The line moves about an inch, so Keith decides he’ll distract himself by checking on the collab videos. He thinks that maybe he should watch them before checking the comments.

He pulls out his phone and opens the youtube app. Lance looks over his shoulder, “What’cha doin’?”

“I might as well see how our videos are doing. I’m gonna watch them first though.”

_Shit,_ Lance thinks. If he watches the candy tasting video, he’ll see how much Lance has been pining for him for sure. He at least wanted to talk to Keith first. That was the whole point of going to the ferris wheel. Lance gives a silent prayer that the youtube app on Keith’s phone won’t work.

His prayers have been answered when Keith groans as he taps angrily at his phone. “Youtube’s not working. I’ll check twitter.” He opens the twitter app which seems to have worked.

Lance fishes out his own phone and opens twitter also. He checks what people have been commenting. Mostly comments about other people who have also eaten the same Mexican candy and reminiscing. Others are screenshots of Lance and Keith and their facial reactions to the jelly beans they ate.

Okay, so far so good. Nothing too out of the ordinary. But then he keeps scrolling and he finds gifs of Lance looking at Keith fondly. The tweets have now turned more shippy between both boys. Comments like “ _omg look at the way lance looks at him, he’s in love <3_” and “ _they are perfect for each other, MAKE MY SHIP CANON_ ” are all over the screen.

Lance quickly glances at Keith for any sign of surprise on his face. He finds there is none. He glances at his phone and sees that he’s no longer on twitter. He seems to be texting his brother. Lance breathes a sigh of relief.

The wait for the ferris wheel is agonizing but eventually, they are close enough to properly see the ferris wheel box cars. It seems only big enough for two people at a time. Maybe three.

Finally, the boys are up next and hand the ride operators their tickets. They board and the door closes. There’s glass all around them except for the top where fresh air comes in. They steadily go up, and Keith looks out the window, of the view of the fair below.

“Wow, you were right about the view. It’s really nice,” breathes Keith.

“Yeah,” Lance looks at Keith, “It sure is.” He tries to get comfortable by stretching his long legs.

“You know, this is the most fun I’ve had in forever.”

Lance sits up a little, “Really?”

Keith turns to Lance, “Yeah.” He sits closer to him, “Uh, sorry, it’s just gotten cold in here.” He wraps his arms around himself.

They sit there in silence, the box car still going up steadily. Lance kicks at himself to say something, but he can’t find the words. But Keith seemed to want to talk too.

“Shiro had always wanted to come to the fair, but I always told him that we didn’t have to go,” he looks down at his shoes, “I guess I was just afraid of crowds and losing him. I don’t know.” He smiles sadly at Lance.

Then Lance brings a hand to caress Keith’s face. Keith stops breathing. They just stare at each other like that, neither daring to look away. Then Lance leans in real close and Keith has to remember to breathe.

Lance brushes his thumb against Keith’s bottom lip, testing the waters. His eyes move from Keith’s eyes to focus on his lips. Keith wonders if Lance can hear the loud beating of his heart. Then, suddenly, Lance’s lips are on his. Keith’s lips feel chapped but Lance doesn’t care.

And all too soon, Lance pulls away, “I, uh,” he looks away, now feeling embarrassed. But Keith grabs his chin so that Lance is back to facing him and kisses him back.

Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s neck as he kisses him, pulling him closer. Lance gets over his initial shock in order to kiss back. Soon, Keith falls back so that he’s lying on his back and Lance is hovering on top of him. Lance moves his lips to Keith’s jaw, down his neck, over his adam’s apple, and down his collar bones. All the while, Keith laughs at all the loving attention Lance is giving him. Lance comes back up and captures Keiths lips once again. He slides their lips together, molding them. When they separate to breathe, a string of saliva connects their lips.

Lance breathes, “God, you’re so beautiful.” Keith smiles. He pulls Lance back down, making Lance grunt at the contact. Their kisses become less coordinated and more sloppy and open mouthed, but neither of them care.

When they sit back up, Lance notices that the windows of the box car have fogged up. When he points it out to Keith, Keith blushes. And Lance finds it so cute that he gives Keith a quick peck on the lips.

 

 

The drive back home is very quiet save for the soft music playing and the light snoring from Hunk. Lance had just dropped off Pidge and is heading to Keith’s apartment. He’s holding Keith’s hand as he drives in the night, occasionally rubbing his thumb across the back of Keith’s hand.

They eventually make it in front of Keith’s apartment building, and Keith doesn’t want to go. He reluctantly lets go of Lance’s hand and proceeds to get out of the car. But then he hears Lance whisper-yell at him, “Wait, wait.” Keith turns back around and Lance leans over his seat and kisses him. It’s sweet and tender with Lance’s slender hand buried within Keith’s hair, which makes the pain of leaving all the more harder for Keith.

When they part, Lance breathes, “Text me before you go to sleep?” Keith nods. Lance leans in for one more kiss before completely pulling away. Keith gets out of the car and slams it shut. He quickly climbs the steps to his apartment door and unlocks the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to deck me with how bad I wrote the love scene. I really tried to be detailed with the kisses I swear!


	14. Milestone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith takes some time to reflect on his new relationship with Lance. They do another SPECIAL collab together. And Keith reaches a new youtube milestone and Lance wants to celebrate!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally, after 100000 years I can now say that this fic is complete! sorry i didn't update sooner. all the hype from sdcc and lance's birthday left me feeling mentally exhausted.

Keith is anxious to see Lance again, even though he just saw him about ten minutes ago for another collab. He’s splayed over the couch when he decides to open his phone and read over all the past messages they’ve exchanged since that night with the ferris wheel. He smiles as he scrolls until he reaches the nightly exchange.

“ _I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep because of you”_

_“Aww, babe~ I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep either~”_

_“’Babe’?”_

_“Oh, is it too soon?”_

_“No, no. It’s fine. Anyway, thanks for taking me. I had a lot of fun.”_

_“No problem! I had a lot of fun too. And tbh, back at the fair with the ferris wheel…”_

_“Yes?”_

_“I really like you. Like A LOT.”_

_“Really? I really like you too.”_

_“Whoa really??? For how long??”_

_“idk when it started but it was before we met. You were like my youtuber crush.”_

_“holy shit. Now I definitely wont be able to sleep.”_

_“lol why?”_

_“lsafjlalkj;af HAVE YOU SEEN YOURSELF??? You are a real pretty boy and a generally cool dude to be around!!”_

Keith blushes as he reads that message again like he did the first time.

_“Oh god you didn’t have to say it like that.”_

_“What? It’s the truth. I just cant help but feel so lucky rn.”_

_“YOU’RE LUCKY? The guy that I’ve been crushing on for over a year likes me back in a month of meeting each other.”_

_“WHAT?? A YEAR??? Still I’m really glad to have met you.”_

_“We should try to get some sleep.”_

_“Ok. Sweet dreams babe~”_

_“lol. Goodnight.”_

_“G’night~”_

Keith keeps scrolling through their text messages. They had texted some more the following day. And the day after that. And so on.

“ _I want to clarify something.”_

_“Ok, shoot.”_

_“What are we? I mean are we dating now or…”_

_“I like to think we are. I’ve already talked to Hunk and Pidge about you and I MAY have said that you’re my boyfriend now.”_

_“Oh Ok. I was just wondering since we sorta both said that we liked each other.”_

_“Yeah man. And I’d like to spend more time with you outside of youtube work like collabs and stuff.”_

_“Speaking of youtube, are you going to announce our relationship on your channel yet?”_

_“Oh, that...”_

_“I mean I don’t mean to pressure you or anything. I know how possessive your viewers get and if you want to keep our relationship low key then I understand.”_

_“No, no. I aim to vlog about our relationship soon. And besides, I care about you too much to care about what other people say anymore.”_

_“lkjjkjfjgdjhkjljdgh”_

_“???”_

_“Sorry, it’s just that… what you said was REALLY sweet.”_

Keith keeps scrolling when his phone vibrates in his hand, notifying him of a new text. He quickly scrolls back down to see Lance's latest message. It reads: " _Hey, so you're probably wondering what the next collab on saturday is gonna be about._ "

Keith sighs as he types out the reply, " _Knowing you, it's probably meant to be a surprise._ "

The typing bubble pops up and after a few seconds, Lance replies back, " _Yup!! But trust me, you're gonna love it~"_ Keith tries to think of a rebuttal when Lance sends another message, " _And I know my place has better air conditioning, but like I kinda wanna do it at ur place instead. Is that ok?_ "

Keith types out his reply and as he does so, Shiro emerges from the hallway and heads into the kitchen. He catches a glimp of Shiro's face in time to see him smirk in Keith's direction. Keith quickly looks away, but it doesn't stop Shiro from teasing him, "What's got you all smiling?"

"Go away, Shiro," Keith growls. Shiro's laugh echoes from the kitchen. 

                                                   

 

Saturday comes and Keith is expecting Lance to arrive soon. He goes to the bathroom to relieve himself quickly before the collab. When he comes out, he hears voices from the living room. 

"-it's true though! My little brother would be up all night watching your videos-"

Oh no. Lance and Shiro hadn't properly met before. What kind of things has Shiro been telling him? In a flurry of panic, Keith makes a mad dash for the living room.

"Really? Then do you know what his favorites are?"

"Well, I kept hearing some splashing noises in one video. Or maybe it was multiple videos, but it sounded like you were in a bathroom." Shiro has a thoughtful look on his face, "Anyway, one night he kept playing that video with that audio. That must've been the day he lost his earbuds. He usually doesn't-"

Keith clears his throat loudly behind Shiro. Shiro turns to face him, a smug look on his face. "Keith! We were just talking about you."

Lance leans so he can see Keith. He raises a hand in a waving motion, "Hey, Keith!" He lifts a plastic bag, "I brought the stuff for out collab! But uh," his face tints pink a little as he looks up at Shiro, "I was planning on doing it in your living room, but I didn't know your brother would be here."

"The summer school session ended recently," explains Shiro, "That won't be a problem, will it?"

"Uh, I mean, it would be awkward if we had an audience, so..." Lance bashfully looks away.

"If it's fine with you, we can do it in my room," Keith supplies. 

For some reason, that makes Lance blush even more. "Yeah, yeah. That would be fine. So, uh, lead the way." He waves at Shiro as Keith leads him to his bedroom. "I didn't bring my camera, so I hope it's alright that we film with yours," Lance says as he enters the bedroom right behind Keith. 

"Sure," Keith looks over his shoulder with a smile. But then his smile drops, "Is everything okay? You seem... nervous."

"Who? Me? Pfffff, nah," Lance waves it off, "It's just, I hope this collab goes well is all."

Keith sets up the camera and the tripod. A couple days after the trip to the fair, Lance had gifted him with a new high-tech camera which proved to improve the overall quality of Keith's videos. Keith had been eternally grateful to say the least.

When he's done, he turns to Lance, "So I've been wondering, which channel is this one being uploaded to?"

"Mine. I hope you don't mind but I wanna announce our relationship in the beginning of the video since it's pretty important." Keith can see Lance fidgeting with the ends of the plastic bag.

"Okay," Keith sits on the unmade bed and pats the spot next to him. Once Lance is seated, Keith intertwines his fingers with Lance's while his other hand grips Lance's chin to bring him closer, letting their foreheads touch. Lance lets out a tiny surprised yelp, which makes them both giggle.

Lance takes the initiative to kiss Keith. The kiss is short but sweet. Lance would _like_ to push Keith down onto the bed and just _cover_ him with kisses, but he has a job to do first.

He pulls away, which elicits a whine from Keith, “Hey, we’ll have plenty of kissing opportunities soon. Just start the recording.”

Keith goes up to the camera and turns on the recording. While the new camera had a remote, Keith never used it. He plops back onto the bed with Lance, “Okay, it’s recording.”

Lance waves at the camera, “Hey everybody! Before we start I just want to announce something. As you may have noticed, I became good friends with Keith here and not too long ago, we, uh,” he looks to Keith as he holds his hand. He looks back at the camera, “It turned out we both had been pinning after each other a while after we first met. So we’re going out now!”

He lifts their intertwined hands in a showing motion to the camera. Keith laughs.

“So, without further ado,” Lance now reaches for the plastic bag again, “Let’s get this challenge started!”

Keith lifts an eyebrow at him, “We’re doing a challenge?” He only gets even more confused when Lance takes out a few sticks of chapstick to show to the cameara.

“So Keith,” Lance turns to him, his face smug, “Ever heard of the chapstick challenge?” He wiggles his eyebrows.

“Uhhh, no, I haven’t.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to explain it to you,” he puts the bag aside out of Keith’s view, “One of us will take out a chapstick out of this bag and apply it to our lips. And then, the other person will have to kiss them and guess what flavor chapstick the person applied.”

Keith’s eyes widen a little at this information, “Oh really?” Then he pouts, “Is this just an excuse for you to kiss me?”

Lance gasps dramatically, “I’ll have you know, I’ve always wanted to do this challenge with someone. And ever since I met you, I’ve had thoughts about doing it with you. So-” Keith shuts him up by leaning forward and pressing his lips against his. When he pulls away, it takes a second or two for Lance to recover, “H-hey, you didn’t apply the chapstick yet.” Keith just rolls his eyes.

“Okay then, let me try again then.” Lance hands him the plastic bag and Keith takes out a blue colored chapstick, blueberry flavored. He uncaps it and starts applying it to his lips. When he’s done, he recaps it and turns so he can kiss Lance, who has his head turned away. “Uh, I’m right here.”

“I know,” Lance now faces him again, “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t look at what flavor chapstick you had.” He glances down to Keith’s lips, “So you ready?”

“Yes.” Keith grips Lance’s shoulder and pulls him in for a solid kiss.

When they pull away, Lance licks his lips thoughtfully, “Hmm. Is it grape?” Keith shakes his head, “Blueberry?”

“Yup.” Lance pumps his fist in victory as Keith hands him the plastic bag. “Should I leave the blueberry chapstick out of the bag?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t want to use the same flavor twice. Plus, I wanted to get through every flavor today.”

Keith lifts a brow, “Every flavor? There’s gotta be, like, twenty chapsticks in there.”

Lance remains nonchalant as he picks another chapstick from the bag, “Actually, there’s only fifteen of them including the one you took out. Now look away! I’m applying my chapstick now.”

Keith does as he’s told. Soon, Lance signals him to turn back around and kisses him. After pulling away, Keith licks his own lips, trying to get a taste of the chapstick, “Is it watermelon?”

“Nope.”

“Strawberry?”

“You got it!”

And so, they go back and forth, tasting each other’s chapstick flavors. There are times where their kisses would linger whenever Lance would occasionally tangle his fingers in Keith’s hair or when Keith tugs at the collar of Lance’s shirt. Keith had said it was to make sure he got Lance’s chapstick on his own lips but Lance just wiggled his eyebrows at him.

After going through every chapstick, Lance gives his youtube outro and Keith turns off the recording. “That was fun, actually. Why call it a challenge?”

Lance shrugs his shoulders, “I don’t know. Maybe it’s one of those cute, couple challenges. Not everything has to be enduring something painful, Keith.”

“I’m actually glad it’s going on your channel instead of mine,” Keith sits back onto the bed, “This kind of thing probably wouldn’t fit my channel theme.”

Lance scoffs. He pauses before speaking up again, “Hey, so, I’ve been thinking. Why don’t we make a collab channel? We could play video games there and stuff.”

Keith thinks for a moment, “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Alright then! We can talk about it some more later, right now I just,” Lance scoots closer to Keith, “I just wanna spend some time with you.” He tentatively places a hand on Keith’s waist and the other to cradle his cheek. Keith leans into the touch. He wraps his hands around Lance’s neck and leans forward when the door to his bedroom opens.

“Sorry to interrupt bu – uh…” Shiro just stands there awkwardly as he sees the two boys clearly about to make out. “I’m guessing you’re done with recording, hopefully?”

Lance’s hands fly off of Keith and Keith is mortified, “S-shiro! Why didn’t you knock?!”

 

 

Later that evening, Shiro had offered Lance to stay for dinner. But Lance had declined, saying he had more youtube related work to do and promptly left. After dinner, Keith opened his youtube notifications and started reading the comments people have left. He noticed that over the course of the month of collabing with Lance, his viewers had already started shipping them together. Keith smiles to himself. At least most people already seemed supportive, even if it was a little weird.

He keeps scrolling through the comments when his phone vibrates beside him. He sees that it’s a text from Lance. He opens the message.

“ _Babe!! Congrats on hitting 30 thousand subs!!”_

Keith’s eyes widen. He hadn’t checked his subscriber count in what feels like forever. He quickly opens a new tab to his channel page and he sees it.

_30.1K._

Keith could hardly believe it. Just two and a half months ago he started his own youtube channel. And with the help of his friends, he was able to gain exposure. But he had his own abilities to thank for keeping an audience and possibly gaining some viewers by himself. His phone vibrates again and Keith has to blink away tears in order to read Lance’s new message.

“ _We should celebrate!! Oh but make sure you thank your new viewers for getting you to this new milestone.”_

 

 

And so, Lance took it upon himself to organize Keith’s little milestone party. The party consisted of Keith and Shiro of course (since it was held at their apartment), with Allura, Pidge, Hunk, and Lance. Lance made a show of affection in front of everyone when Keith opened the door and Lance practically _flung himself_ at him, smacking his lips and humming loudly against Keith’s. Everyone sighs at Lance’s rather dramatic entrance.

“You can make out with your boyfriend later, Lance,” Pidge says behind him. She turns to Keith, “I brought this karaoke game that we could all play. It was Allura’s idea.”

Lifting a brow, Keith looks to Allura for an explanation. “Your cover song video for Shiro was really inspiring. I have no doubt it’s one of your most popular uploads.” She winks at him.

Lance finally lets Keith out of his embrace, “Okay! While Pidge and I hook up that game, Hunk can serve you some food he prepared for the occasion.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to bring food,” says Shiro. But Keith eyes the pot in Hunk’s arms excitedly. Once he puts the pot on the dinner table, Keith immediately starts poking at it and looking inside.

“I didn’t know what you liked so I made this stew and some fried chicken wings. They’re in the car so I’ll be right back.” Hunk exits the room and heads back outside. Keith’s eyes sparkle at the mention of chicken. When he looks at Shiro, his gaze is a bit disappointed.

“What?” says Keith, “No offence Shiro, but I was getting tired of eating your pasta every day.”

Shiro sighs but a smile returns to his face, “Well, you deserve it.” He walks up to him and lightly punches him in the arm, “Congrats, bro.”

Hunk returns with a big bowl of fried chicken wings and he puts it on the table. Keith goes to dig in when Hunk puts a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t eat too much, or you won’t be able to play karaoke with us.”

“And wash your hand first, please,” points Shiro. With a groan, Keith goes to wash his hands. All the while, he thinks about how far he’s come. Allura and Lance definitely helped him and so did his viewers. He makes a mental note to make time soon to record the thank you video.

He wipes his hands and lets out a blissful sigh when he finally takes a bite off of one chicken wing. “I also brought a sauce to go with the wings, but be careful, it’s a bit spicy.” Hunk offers Keith a little bowl of the sauce and Keith takes it. He can smell the spice.

“Hey, I ate an entire ghost pepper, I think I can handle this,” says Keith. Hunk’s eyes widen in awe.

“Whoa, you actually did that? Sorry, I don’t normally watch even Lance’s videos.”

“Icht mo problem,” Keith says with a mouthful of chicken. Shiro slaps him against the back which makes him cough a little.

A little after Keith had his small fill of food, he goes to the living room in time to see Lance in his dramatic singing glory. Keith smiles at the entertaining display. He makes eye contact with Pidge who is sitting on the couch. She shakes her head in disbelief as if to say, “can you believe this guy?”

Lance’s song ends and he turns around, surprised to see Keith. “Oh, you ready to come sing with me?”

“We singing a duet or something?”

Lance beams, “Yeah! C’mon, it’ll be fun.” They select a song together and start singing. Keith isn’t very familiar with the song but he tries his best to keep up. Soon, everyone comes into the living room to watch the pair sing. When they finish, there’s clapping and hollering from their little audience.

“Whoa, we should do a cover duet. Whaddaya say?” Lance looks to Keith.

“Yeah, I’d like that.” Keith holds Lance’s hand in his and squeezes. He would’ve gone in for a kiss had he not remembered that his other friends were currently watching them. Hunk lets out an “aww.” Keith coughs into his fist, embarrassed, clearly Lance was not letting go.

“Okay! Who’s next!”

Everyone took turns singing song after song. Sometimes Pidge and Allura would duet together. Shiro only sung once until everyone decided he wasn’t a very good singer. After a couple hours of karaoke, everyone save for Lance and Keith are seated at the dining table, enjoying the food.

Keith is splayed over the couch with Lance’s body draped over him. “Babe, why are you so sweaty?” Lance moans.

“If you don’t want to cuddle ‘cause it’s too hot then go get some food with the others.” But that only makes Lance cling closer.

“Nooooo,” Lance whines, “I wanna cuddle with you.” And to make it clear that he’s not moving, Lance hooks his around Keith’s hips and places his head on Keith’s chest. Keith only sighs.

Keith notices that Lance is wearing those same booty shorts again. Without thinking, he lets a hand wander up and down Lance’s calf. He definitely shaved again. The moan that comes out of Lance startles Keith into retracting his hand. Lance lifts himself so he can face Keith, a pout on his lips.

“Babe, why’d you stop?”

“Uhhh…” Keith looks away, a blush spreads across his face. He blushes even more when Lance takes his hand and places it higher up his leg, against his back thigh. Keith lets out a shaky breath and continues his ministrations.

“I really like your legs, by the way,” Keith mutters.

“What can I say? It’s like one of my best features,” Lance grins at him and Keith rolls his eyes.

They continue to lay down in silence with Keith’s hand rubbing against Lance’s leg. Then Lance suddenly speaks up, “So the bathbomb video, huh.”

“What?”

Lance looks at him, his face turning smug, “The part where my legs were in the bathtub in the bathbomb video. You must’ve liked that, huh?”

Keith pulls his hand away, “How did you…?”

“Your brother pretty much told me enough for me to figure it out,” Lance states matter-of-factly. Keith inwardly curses Shiro for not keeping his mouth shut. Lance suddenly gets up from his cuddle spot with Keith and grabs his hand.

“C’mon, there should be some food left for us to eat.” Keith lets himself be pulled along to the dining table where everyone else is waiting. Everyone congratulates him one last time, and Keith feels eternally grateful.

“Hey, we should take a selfie together!” Lance hollers.

“Wait hold on I have spicy sauce on my face-” Keith hears the camera snap sound from Lance’s phone. Lance laughs at the picture. Keith wipes his face for another, proper selfie. They wrap their arms around each other’s sides, face Lance’s phone, and smile. Lance sneaks a kiss on Keith’s cheek.


End file.
